RE: New bulletin: Updated Trends in Child Maltreatment, 2008

["Stone, Deborah (CDC/CCEHIP/NCIPC)" <zaf9@xxxxxxx>]

According to an article by Yuan (2005) in "Protecting Children" (vol 20,
No. 2 &3, p. 22), the decision to use alternative response or
differential response is only made after a report to CPS has been made.
This wouldn't then impact the number of reports to CPS, but would impact
the number of reports substantiated (assuming that at least some of the
AR cases would have previously been substantiated). 

Deb
 

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-6220148-13419240@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bounce-6220148-13419240@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kristen
Shook Slack
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 3:53 PM
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
Subject: Re: New bulletin: Updated Trends in Child Maltreatment, 2008

What is so interesting to me is that even the numbers/rates of /reports/

to CPS hotlines has been declining (in many, but not all locales), 
despite the bad economy.  I would expect fewer screened in reports and 
substantiated reports because as already noted, those are gatekeeping 
decisions, and with state/county budgets in crisis, there may be fewer 
resources to deal with even steady demand on systems.  However, I would 
have expected that people would still make calls to CPS when they expect

maltreatment is occurring.  Others have hypothesized that there may be 
fewer mandated (social service) reporters with all the hiring freezes, 
layoffs, etc.  It could also be that there is a greater reluctance, on 
the part of potential reporters, to make calls that involve situations 
where the neglect/poverty line is blurry (e.g., with more people 
struggling with unemployment, housing loss, etc., there may be a greater

tendency to empathize with another family's situation). 

There may be a more mechanical explanation, though--one that I thought 
had been raised on this listserv by others.  Are states that have 
differential/alternative response in place counting their lower risk, 
voluntary "tracks" as protective services reports or are these reports 
getting subtracted from the denominator in their report rate and 
victimization rate calculations?  If the latter is true, with more and 
more states and localities adopting such reforms, we might expect to see

these declines in recent years. 

-Kristi


-- 
Kristen Shook Slack, Ph.D.
Associate Professor 
School of Social Work
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1350 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706

ph: 608-263-3671
fx: 608-263-3836