Child Maltreatment 2004 : Chapter Two: Reports

Administration for Children and Families

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Chapter 2
Reports
Child Maltreatment 2004

Each week, child protective services (CPS) agencies in the United States receive approximately 60,000 referrals alleging that children have been abused or neglected. Some of these referrals lie outside the responsibility of the CPS agencies and may be forwarded to other agencies, such as income maintenance departments or health departments. Other referrals do not have sufficient information to enable followup. For these and other reasons, including the workload of the agency, approximately one-third of referrals are screened out and do not receive further attention from CPS. The remaining two-thirds of referrals are screened in as reports to CPS agencies because they meet the States' policies for conducting an investigation or assessment.

Once a referral is accepted as a report alleging child abuse or neglect, the agency may initiate an investigation of the alleged incident or pursue an alternative response.¹ In general, investigations determine whether or not the child was maltreated-or is at risk of maltreatment-and determine appropriate interventions. Alternative responses emphasize an assessment of the family's needs and the prevention of future maltreatment, rather than making a formal determination of maltreatment.² Regardless of which type of response the agency uses for a specific report, it must decide if further action is necessary to protect the child.

This chapter presents statistics on the screening of referrals and the investigation of accepted referrals. Accepted or screened-in referrals are termed reports. Data are provided on the sources of reports, the CPS response time, and the dispositions or findings of investigations conducted in response to these reports.

Screening of Referrals

During 2004, an estimated total of 3 million referrals, including approximately 5.5 million children, were made to CPS agencies. The national rate was 42.6 referrals per 1,000 children for 2004 compared with 39.1 referrals per 1,000 children for 2003. ³, ⁴

CPS agencies screened in 62.7 percent of referrals and screened out 37.3 percent. These results were similar to 2003 data, which indicated 67.9 percent were screened in and 32.1 percent were screened out.

Report Sources

Professionals submitted more than one-half (55.8%) of the reports (figure 2-1). "Professional" indicates that the report source came into contact with the alleged victim as part of the reporter's occupation. State laws require most professionals to notify CPS agencies of suspected maltreatment. The categories of professionals include educators, legal and law enforcement personnel, social services personnel, medical personnel, mental health personnel, child daycare providers, and foster care providers. The three most common sources of reports in 2004 were from professionals—educational personnel (16.5%), legal or law enforcement personnel (15.6%), and social services personnel (10.5%).⁵

Nonprofessional report sources submitted the remaining 44.2 percent of reports. These included parents, other relatives, friends and neighbors, alleged victims, alleged perpetrators, anonymous callers, and "other" sources. Anonymous (9.4%), "other" sources (8.4%) and other relatives (7.9%) accounted for the largest groups of nonprofessional reporters. "Other" sources includes categories that States did not map to any of the standard categories. This included clergy members, sports coaches, camp counselors, bystanders, volunteers, and foster siblings.

Response Time from Report to Investigation

Most States have time standards for initiating the investigation of reports and monitor whether these commence within the required time standards. While some States have one timeframe for responding to reports, many States establish priorities based on the information received from the report source. Of the States that establish priorities, many specify a high-priority response as within 1 hour or within 24 hours. Lower priority responses range from 24 hours to 14 days.⁶

Because CPS agencies receive reports of varying degrees of urgency, average response times reflect the types of reports that are received, as well as the ability of workers to meet the time standards. Based on data from 26 States, the median response time from report to investigation was 48 hours or approximately 2 days. The average response time for these States was 97 hours or approximately 4 days.⁷

Investigated Reports

CPS agencies assign a finding-also called a disposition-to a report after the circumstances are investigated and a determination is made as to the likelihood that maltreatment occurred or that the child is at risk of maltreatment. Each State establishes specific dispositions and terminology. States crosswalk or "map" State-specific terms to standard terminology used by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). The major NCANDS disposition categories are described below.

Alternative Response Nonvictim: A conclusion that the child was not identified as a victim when a response other than investigation was provided.
Alternative Response Victim: A conclusion that the child was identified as a victim when a response other than investigation was provided.
Indicated: An investigation disposition that concludes that maltreatment could not be substantiated under State law or policy, but there was reason to suspect that the child may have been maltreated or was at risk of maltreatment. This is applicable only to States that distinguish between substantiated and indicated dispositions.
Substantiated: A type of investigation disposition that concludes that the allegation of maltreatment or risk of maltreatment was supported or founded by State law or State policy.
Unsubstantiated: A type of investigation disposition that determines that there was not sufficient evidence under State law to conclude or suspect that the child was maltreated or at risk of being maltreated.

Dispositions of reports are based on the activities of the CPS workers who assess the allegations that children in the household were maltreated. In many instances, allegations of more than one type of maltreatment are made regarding more than one child in the household. The report disposition is the most serious finding related to all allegations for all children. For example, if an allegation of neglect was substantiated for one child, an allegation of physical abuse was unsubstantiated for the same child, and an allegation of physical abuse for a second child was unsubstantiated, the report would be considered to be substantiated. In the same example, counts of children by disposition would result in one child with a substantiated allegation, and two children with unsubstantiated allegations.

Data on children are provided in Chapter 3, Victims. Because many reports have more than one child and because of the computation of report disposition, there are usually more children than reports with the same disposition.

More than one-quarter of investigations resulted in a disposition of substantiated (25.7%), indicated (3.0%), or alternative response victim (0.1%), meaning that at least one child involved in each of these investigations was found to be a victim (figure 2-2). More than one-half (60.7%) of investigations led to a finding that the alleged maltreatment was unsubstantiated.⁸ In addition, 5.1 percent were considered as reports that received an alternative response that did not find any victims, 3.8 percent had "other" dispositions, and 1.7 percent were either closed without a finding or the disposition was unknown. "Other" dispositions include classifications by States that did not match any of the standard dispositions. States are receiving technical assistance to correctly assign dispositions.

Report Disposition by Source

Report dispositions are based on the facts of the report as found by the CPS worker. The type of reporter may be related to the disposition of a report because of the accuracy of the knowledge of the reporter and the reporter's credibility (figure 2-3). Case-level data submitted to NCANDS were used to examine this hypothesis.⁹ Based on more than 1.5 million reports, key findings are listed below.

Approximately two-thirds of substantiated or indicated reports were made by professional sources. For each dispositional category, more than one-quarter of substantiated or indicated reports were made by law enforcement personnel.
Nonprofessional sources accounted for large percentages of reports that were determined to be alternative response victims (71.8%); intentionally false (81.0%); or closed without a finding (63.2%).

CPS Workforce and Workload

In most large jurisdictions and among many local agencies, the functions of screening and investigation are conducted by different workers. In many rural and smaller agencies, one worker may perform both functions. Using data from both types of agencies-those that differentiate and those that do not-an average workload was computed.

Data from those States that reported significant numbers of specialized workers for intake, screening, investigation, and assessment were used to estimate the number of cases that were handled by CPS workers.¹⁰ The number of screening and intake workers (1,581) compared with the number of investigation workers (13,567) were reported by 26 States. Based on these States, the average number of investigations per investigation worker was 65.7 per year. (This compares with 63.1 in 2003.) It is important to note that these calculations did not consider other activities of these workers and that some workers conducted more than one function. A more accurate calculation of workload would require a systematic estimation of work for a specific timeframe.

Tables and Notes

The following pages contain the tables referenced in Chapter 2. Unless otherwise explained, a blank indicates that the State did not submit usable data. Specific information about State submissions can be found in appendix D. Additional information regarding methodologies that were used to create the tables is provided below.

Table 2-1

For those States that submitted the Child File, the screened-in number is the sum of the reports by disposition. For SDC States, the number is taken directly from the State's report form.
The national referral rate, 42.6 referrals per 1,000 children in the population, was calculated from the total number of referrals and the child population in the 38 States reporting both screened-in and screened-out referrals.

Table 2-2

States with a total report percentage of more than 100.0 had inconsistent report sources for children in the report.

Table 2-5

There could be more than one source per report and therefore the total number of reports by disposition in some cases were duplicate counts.

Table 2-6

Only States that were able to report workforce data by screening and intake workers and investigation workers and that provided data for screened-in referrals were included in calculations for screened-in referrals per investigation worker.
The average number of screened-in investigations per investigation worker is based on dividing the total number of investigations by the total number of investigation and assessment workers for the 26 States that submitted these data.

¹ Throughout this report the term investigation is used to include both investigations, assessments, and alternative responses, unless otherwise noted. back
² Shusterman, G. R., Hollinshead, D., Fluke, J.D. & Yuan, Y.T. Alternative responses to child maltreatment: Findings from NCANDS. (Washington DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, 2005). Page vii. back
³ Supporting data are provided in table 2-1 , which is located at the end of this chapter. Based on data from 38 States, the national rate of referrals is 42.6 referrals per 1,000 children. A referral can include more than one child. Multiplying this rate by the national child population of 73,277,998 results in an estimated 3,121,643 referrals in 2004. The estimate was then rounded to 3,000,000. Unless otherwise specified, all rates refer to children younger than 18 years in the national population.back
⁴ The number of children included in all referrals was calculated by multiplying the average number of children included in a referral (1.84) by the number of estimated referrals (3,121,643). The estimate was then rounded to the nearest half-million. back
⁵ See table 2-2 . back
⁶ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Administration for Children and Families/Children's Bureau and Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. National Study of Child Protective Services Systems and Reform Efforts: Review of State CPS Policy. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing office, 2004). This document is also available at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/cps-status03. back
⁷ See table 2-3 . back
⁸ See table 2-4 . back
⁹ See table 2-5 . back
¹⁰ See table 2-6 . back

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Chapter 2 Reports Child Maltreatment 2004