“They’re not bad parents. They’ve just made bad choices.”: Mental health clinicians’ perspectives of parents involved with child protective services

2020 ◽  
pp. 147332502097328
Author(s):  
Hana Yoo ◽  
Stefana Racorean ◽  
Victoria Barrows
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Child Protective Services ◽  
Mental Health Clinicians ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Psychotherapeutic Treatment ◽  
Parenting Knowledge ◽  
Involved Parents

Although psychotherapeutic treatment (e.g., counseling and therapy) is often offered to clients involved with child protective services (CPS), the existing literature includes few voices of mental health clinicians regarding their work and clients in the child welfare system. The current study seeks to address this gap by exploring clinicians’ views on the issue of child maltreatment and CPS-involved parents’ parenting. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews revealed that clinicians acknowledged the strengths of CPS-involved parents as well as the challenges that may have made their parenting difficult. For strengths, clinicians identified parents’ desire to care for their child, motivation to improve their parenting, and commitment to their child. Identified challenges included a lack of parenting knowledge, substance use, and limited resources and support. Overall, clinicians in this study presented a balanced perspective that attended to both the “good” and the “bad” in their clients’ parenting. They viewed CPS-involved parents as more than the sum of their problematic parenting behaviors and understood incidents of child maltreatment within the parents’ contexts. At the same time, their interviews noted that a variety of individual and sociostructural challenges faced by CPS-involved parents must be addressed in order to resolve child maltreatment and prevent parents’ repeated involvement in the child protection system.

Who Gets Protection? A National Study of Multiple Victimization and Child Protection Among Taiwanese Children

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (17) ◽  
pp. 3737-3761 ◽  
Author(s):  
April Chiung-Tao Shen ◽  
Joyce Yen Feng ◽  
Jui-Ying Feng ◽  
Hsi-Sheng Wei ◽  
Yi-Ping Hsieh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Community Violence ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Child Protective Services ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Parental Violence ◽  
Multiple Victimization ◽  
Child Victimization ◽  
And Behavior

This study aims to examine the prevalence of multiple types of child victimization and the effects of multiple types of victimization on children’s mental health and behavior in Taiwan. The study also examines the child-protection rate and its correlates among children experiencing various types of victimization. This study collected data with a self-report questionnaire from a national proportionately stratified sample of 6,233 fourth-grade students covering every city and county in Taiwan in 2014. After calculating the 1-year prevalence of child victimization, the study found that bullying was the most prevalent (71%), followed by physical neglect (66%), psychological violence (43%), inter-parental violence (28%), community violence (22%), physical abuse (21%), and sexual violence (9%). As the number of victimization types increased, children were more likely to report greater posttraumatic symptoms, psychiatric symptoms, suicide ideation, self-harm thoughts, and violent behaviors. Gender, neonatal status, parental marital status, and other family risks were significantly associated with elevated incidences of the victimization types. Only 20.6% of the children who had experienced all seven types of victimization had received child protective services. A child was more likely to receive child protective services if he or she had experienced sexual violence, community violence, inter-parental violence exposure, higher family risks, higher suicidal ideation, or living in a single-parent or separated family. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the cumulative effects and the harmful effects that children’s experience of multiple types of victimization can have on the children’s mental health and behavior. The present findings also raise alarms regarding the severity of under-serving in child-victimization cases. These results underscore the importance of assessing, identifying, and helping children with multiple victimization experiences.

Maltreatment Type Classifications and Transitions During Childhood for a California Birth Cohort

2021 ◽  
pp. 107755952110067
Author(s):  
John Prindle ◽  
Regan Foust ◽  
Emily Putnam-Hornstein
Keyword(s):  
Childhood Maltreatment ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Child Protective Services ◽  
Latent Transition Analysis ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Transition Analysis ◽  
Children In Foster Care ◽  
Protection Systems ◽  
Maltreatment Type

Childhood maltreatment involves dynamics between the type of maltreatment experienced and the context of maltreatment. Reports of alleged maltreatment to child protective services may overlap and shift over time, complicating understanding of their independent and interacting nature, including how child protection systems respond. Latent class analysis (LCA) and latent transition analysis (LTA) were used to construct data-based models of longitudinal dynamics of alleged maltreatment throughout childhood. We sought to identify patterns leading to system decisions to substantiate allegations of maltreatment and place children in foster care. Using linked birth and child protection records, we defined a cohort of children born in California in 1999, 29.4% of whom had at least one referral for alleged maltreatment before their 18th birthday. Maltreatment and perpetrator indicators were coded, and LCA identified five alleged maltreatment classes and one class of children without referrals. LTA determined consistency of classifications and estimated transitions between classes over age periods. Children with multitype maltreatment patterns or experiences of neglect were most likely to experience future maltreatment allegations. Estimated probabilities of placement indicated children with Multitype Maltreatment allegations were more likely to experience substantiated maltreatment allegations and out-of-home placements. Findings identify a repeatable method for better understanding complex systems.

Who Is and Is Not Served by Child Protective Services Systems? Implications for a Prevention Infrastructure to Reduce Child Maltreatment

2020 ◽  
Vol 692 (1) ◽  
pp. 182-202
Author(s):  
Kristen S. Slack ◽  
Lawrence M. Berger
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Child Protective Services ◽  
Child Welfare System ◽  
Community Response ◽  
Welfare System ◽  
Child Safety ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Child Maltreatment Prevention

The majority of alleged abuse or neglect reports to the U.S. child welfare system are either screened out prior to an investigation (i.e., at the “hotline” stage) or investigated only to be closed with no finding of immediate child safety concerns. Yet while many of these children and families are at risk of subsequent incidents of child maltreatment or child welfare system involvement, they are not systematically offered services or benefits intended to reduce this risk at the point that child protective services (CPS) ends its involvement. This article provides an overview of the “front end” of the child welfare system, commonly referred to as CPS, highlighting which families are served and which are not. We then argue for a systematic and coordinated child maltreatment prevention infrastructure that incorporates elements of “community response” programs that several U.S. states have implemented in recent years. Such programs are focused on families that have been reported to, and sometimes investigated by, CPS, but no ongoing CPS case is opened. We further argue that such programs need to pay particular attention to economic issues that these families face.

scholarly journals Association of Housing Stress With Child Maltreatment: A Systematic Review

2020 ◽  
pp. 152483802093913
Author(s):  
Caroline E. Chandler ◽  
Anna E. Austin ◽  
Meghan E. Shanahan
Keyword(s):  
Child Maltreatment ◽  
Child Protective Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Material Hardship ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Stress Indicators ◽  
Effective Prevention ◽  
Established Risk Factor ◽  
Significant Public Health

Child maltreatment is a significant public health issue in the United States. Understanding key risk factors for child maltreatment is critical to informing effective prevention. Poverty is an established risk factor for child maltreatment. However, recent research indicates that material hardship (i.e., difficulties meeting basic needs) may serve as a more direct measure of the way in which poverty affects daily life. One form of material hardship that is common among families is housing stress. Previous reviews have summarized the existing literature regarding the association of economic insecurity with child maltreatment, but no reviews have synthesized and critically evaluated the literature specific to the association of various types of housing stress with child maltreatment. We conducted a systematic search of multiple electronic databases to identify peer-reviewed studies conducted in the U.S. regarding the association of housing stress with child maltreatment. We identified 21 articles that used nine distinct measures of housing stress including homelessness or eviction, homeless or emergency shelter stays, foreclosure filing, housing instability, inadequate housing, physical housing risk, living doubled-up, housing unaffordability, and composite housing stress indicators. Overall, results from this body of literature indicate that housing stress is associated with an increased likelihood of caregiver or child self-reported maltreatment, child protective services (CPS) reports, investigated and substantiated CPS reports, out-of-home placements, and maltreatment death. Additional theory-driven research is needed to further our understanding of the contribution of specific types of housing stress to risk for specific types of maltreatment.

Getting Eyes in the Home: Child Protective Services Investigations and State Surveillance of Family Life

2020 ◽  
Vol 85 (4) ◽  
pp. 610-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelley Fong
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Child Protective Services ◽  
The State ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Poor Families ◽  
State Surveillance ◽  
Domestic Lives ◽  
Institutional Engagement ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Marginalized Families

Each year, U.S. child protection authorities investigate millions of families, disproportionately poor families and families of color. These investigations involve multiple home visits to collect information across numerous personal domains. How does the state gain such widespread entrée into the intimate, domestic lives of marginalized families? Predominant theories of surveillance offer little insight into this process and its implications. Analyzing observations of child maltreatment investigations in Connecticut and interviews with professionals reporting maltreatment, state investigators, and investigated mothers, this article argues that coupling assistance with coercive authority—a hallmark of contemporary poverty governance—generates an expansive surveillance of U.S. families by attracting referrals from adjacent systems. Educational, medical, and other professionals invite investigations of families far beyond those ultimately deemed maltreating, with the hope that child protection authorities’ dual therapeutic and coercive capacities can rehabilitate families, especially marginalized families. Yet even when investigations close, this arrangement, in which service systems channel families to an entity with coercive power, fosters apprehension among families and thwarts their institutional engagement. These findings demonstrate how, in an era of welfare retrenchment, rehabilitative poverty governance renders marginalized populations hyper-visible to the state in ways that may reinforce inequality and marginality.

Care Coordination for Youth With Mental Health Disorders in Primary Care

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Hobbs Knutson ◽  
Mark J. Meyer ◽  
Nisha Thakrar ◽  
Bradley D. Stein
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Primary Care ◽  
Care Coordination ◽  
Child Protective Services ◽  
Mental Health Disorders ◽  
Specialty Care ◽  
Health Providers ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Primary Care Settings ◽  
Health Disorders

Many children are treated for mental health disorders in primary care settings. The system of care (SOC) provides a framework for collaboration among pediatric mental health providers, but it is unclear if youth treated for mental health disorders in primary care receive such coordination. At the South Boston Community Health Center from September /2012 to August 2013 for 74 individuals ≤18 years, the odds of contact with SOC agencies (mental health, education, child protective services, juvenile justice and developmental disabilities) were compared for mental health treatment in primary versus specialty care. The odds of SOC contact within primary care were lower compared to specialty care (OR = 0.43, 95% CI = 0.29-0.66), specifically for mental health (OR = 0.54, 95% CI = 0.25-1.2), education (OR = 0.12, 95% CI = 0.050-0.28), and child protective services (OR = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.22-1.9). As care coordination may improve health outcomes, increased support and education for care coordination specific to youth treated for mental health disorders in primary care settings may be warranted.

scholarly journals Strengths and problems of families in contact with child protective services during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Witte ◽  
Heinz Kindler
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Child Protective Services ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Protective Services ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
The Family ◽  
Child And Youth Welfare ◽  
The Face ◽  
Adaptation Response ◽  
Perceived Effects

Objective: The study investigates the dynamics within families in contact with child protective services in reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic as perceived by social workers. Based on the Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response (FAAR) model, strengths and problems are outlined. Background: Following the first lockdown of public life in March 2020, concerns about children’s well-being have been raised. Practitioners and scientists alike worried that particularly children in families with multiple problems would suffer severe abuse and neglect. However, it remains unclear how these families have actually been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and the measures to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Method: Child protection caseworkers from 40 child and youth welfare authorities across Germany were interviewed twice via telephone. The first interview was conducted during summer 2020, and the second interview two months later. Caseworkers were questioned about their professional experience in their daily work since March 2020. Moreover, they provided information on the perceived effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on families in contact with child protective services. Results: The interviews were analyzed using content analyses. Six overall challenges for families were identified. Families reacted differently to these. The caseworkers reported problems in families like increased parental conflict, media use, and alcohol consumption during the first lockdown. Nevertheless in some families, the caseworkers also perceived there to be less stress and tension during the lockdown in March 2020 due to fewer school requirements. Furthermore, some families were able to establish routines, activate resources, and find solutions for problems on their own. At the time of the second interview, some families’ problems had increased, particularly regarding children’s difficulties at school due to insufficient homeschooling. Conclusion: The results show that the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on child protection families are positive and negative. Some are resourceful in the face of adversities, and others show an aggravation of problems. The results are discussed in light of findings on family dynamics during the Covid-19 pandemic in other countries.

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