In-home support or out of home care? Thresholds for intervention with abused and neglected children

Abstract

The number of children referred to the English child protection system and the numbers receiving home-based intervention or placed in out of home care have been rising in recent years. It is difficult to judge whether these changes indicate that thresholds for intervention are low or high, as we know little about the severity of the maltreatment that draws children into the child protection system in England. This study compared the histories, circumstances and pathways of children receiving quasi-compulsory home-based support (under a child protection plan) to those for children ever placed in out of home care. It collected detailed data from the social workers of 390 children and is the first UK study to include a standardised measure of the severity of maltreatment, the Modified Maltreatment Classification System (MMCS). It found that the vast majority of children had experienced multiple types of maltreatment, including at least one type of high severity, suggesting that thresholds for the use of child protection plans and placement were high. The strongest predictors of placement (as opposed to home-based support) were severity of maltreatment, being unborn or under one year old at referral, being disabled and experiencing physical abuse. Findings are discussed in the context of developments in policy and services under the English government's austerity programme.

Paradoxical evidence on ethnic inequities in child welfare: Towards a research agenda

“…This has led to the hypothesis that there is a protective effect for children arising from some aspects of Hispanic communities' social arrangements or culture. A similar position appears to be the case in England with recent studies of national (Owen and Statham, 2009), regional (Bywaters et al, 2017) and local (Biehal et al, 2018) data reporting that children categorised as 'Asian' had much lower levels of involvement with child protection services than White children, despite higher poverty rates. But, in the UK, less attention has been paid to ethnicity in children's services research and both evidence and theory are correspondingly less well developed.…”

Patterns of adversity and post-traumatic stress among children adopted from care

“…Past negative and tragic outcomes for young children has been highlighted by child protection social workers as a main reason for intervening early (Critchley, 2020). Biehal et al, (2018) found that in over two-thirds of cases where children were referred pre-birth, social workers concerns were borne out as the children went on to experience abuse or neglect. Thus, we suggest that children in this group were likely to have been removed based on past harm in the family.…”

“…Person-centered approaches have been used previously to identify subgroups of maltreated children (see Debowska, Willmott, Boduszek & Jones, 2017): children who experienced multiple forms of maltreatment consistently present with more behavioral and emotional problems. Latent class analysis has been used to identify subgroups within samples of children placed out of home (Biehal, Baldwin, Cusworth, Wade, & Allgar, 2018;Keller, Cusick, & Courtney, 2007;Pears, Kim & Fisher, 2008;Petrenko, Friend, Garrido, Taussig, & Culhane, 2012;Warmingham et al, 2019), and to investigate the needs of adoptive families (Lee, Wyman LATENT CLASS ANALYSIS OF PTS IN ADOPTED CHILDREN 7 Battalen, Brodzinsky, & Goldberg, 2020). To the best of our knowledge, however, no previous research has examined patterns of adversity in children adopted from state care using LCA.…”

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

“…The Multi-type classification were more likely to have more severe allegation types. This follows studies showing maltreatment type and subsequent out-ofhome placement has identifying physical abuse, emotional abuse, more severe maltreatment, and the number of distinct maltreatment types as possible risks for entry (Biehal et al, 2018;English et al, 2015).…”