A family-level analysis on dynamics of risk factors and child maltreatment re-reports

In 2017, 30% of US children referred to child protective services (CPS) had a prior history of CPS involvement. Despite the effort of child protective services (CPS) to coordinate services that will prevent future concerns of child maltreatment, recidivism is still common.

In this talk we will present a research project where we used California population-based administrative data, to estimate family-level child maltreatment and analyze its association with the dynamics of risk factors. While previous approaches to child maltreatment recidivism has been made at a child-level, this research takes a family-level approach using California population-based administrative data. This projects address two questions, 1) how many families are re-reported after their first child’s CPS engagement, and 2) how the family-level dynamics of risk factors are associated with the family’s re-engagement with CPS?