IOWA
Wayne McCracken
MDT Coordinator
Division of Adult, Children and Family Services
Iowa Department of Human Services
Hoover State Building, 5th Floor
Des Moines, IA 50319
(515) 281-8978
(515) 281-4597 Fax
Sources of Data and Data Collection Methods
Iowa was unable to submit 1996 data. With the exception of item 14,
data from 1995 are used as best estimates. Data are collected from
Iowa's incident-based system. Every time an incident of child abuse
is determined to meet the legal criteria of child abuse in Iowa,
the incident is entered into the database. The data are duplicated
in that a child who was reported to have been abused in more than
one incident would appear in the State's system more than once. The
same is true in counting perpetrators.
Level of Evidence Used To Substantiate a Report
Preponderance of evidence.
Comments on Specific Items
Item 1: Referrals received but not accepted for investigation are not considered "reports" and are not included in this number.
Item 3:"Other" includes all persons who report as permissive reporters, including the child, parents, relatives, siblings, friends, neighbors, perpetrators, etc. "Anonymous" includes those individuals who report potential abuse or neglect without stating their relationship to the child victim.
Item 4:"Other" dispositions mean that the reports were "undetermined." There was no preponderance of evidence to support a conclusion that abuse/neglect either happened or did not happen. Iowa has the following investigation outcome definitions:
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Founded Abuse: A preponderance of evidence indicates abuse did occur. Abuse categories include physical abuse, sexual abuse, denial of critical care, and combinations of these categories.
Undetermined: There is no preponderance of evidence to found the abuse or to unfound the abuse. There is an equal amount of evidence indicating that abuse did occur and that abuse did not occur.
Unfounded: There is a preponderance of evidence that abuse did not occur. Unfounded abuse is categorized as "inappropriate care" (child abuse is unfounded; however, some physical or sexual behavior toward a child or some aspects of a child's care have been identified as inappropriate care) or "no concerns" (child abuse is unfounded and no concerns have been identified).
Item 5: The number of incident investigations completed is used as an estimate of the number of families for whom an investigation was completed.
Item 6:"Other" refers to "undetermined" dispositions.
Item 7:"Emotional Abuse" includes "failure to provide adequate mental health care," "gross failure to meet emotional needs," and "mental injury." "Other Abuse" reflects the number of cases of founded abuse due to the presence of illegal drugs in a child. Because Iowa's system allows up to five types of injury to be entered for each child victim, the number of victims by maltreatment type exceeds the total number of victims.
Item 12:The total includes occasions when a petition was filed or requested. In some court jurisdictions, the investigator files the petition; in others, the investigator requests that the juvenile court officer file the petition. Some court actions do not result in removal of the child from the home. These include court-ordered removal of the perpetrator, court-ordered supervision of the child, court-ordered services for the child and family, and court-ordered evaluation of the parent. Evaluations of the parent may be ordered although the child is not adjudicated.
Item 13:The State can report the number of services provided to families and children after the investigation. However, it does not sort out whether the report was "founded," "undetermined," or "unfounded." Many times the report may have been "unfounded" or "undetermined," but the investigative worker identifies the service needs of the family. For a report to be founded, (1) the perpetrator must have been a caretaker and (2) the child or family must require services to treat the abuse. The most common service is family-centered service.
Item 15:Iowa's data can only provide information about biological parents, adoptive parents, or step-parents. "Other Relatives" includes all siblings, caretaker paramours, and other relatives. In Iowa, the perpetrator must be the caretaker. Although the system is incident based, it does provide the number of children who were reported to be abused and the number who were actually abused. The computer system allows for two perpetrators to be recorded for each incident. Some perpetrators may be listed on two or more incidents at the same time.
