Welfare recipients’ involvement with child protective services after welfare reform

Abstract

Objective-This study identifies factors associated with child protective services (CPS) involvement among current and former welfare recipients after welfare reform legislation was passed in the US in 1996.Method-Data come from the Women's Employment Study, a longitudinal study of randomly selected welfare recipients living in a Michigan city in 1997 (N = 541). In order to identify risk factors for CPS involvement among current and former welfare recipients, multinomial logit analyses with 29 independent variables were employed on a trichotomous dependent variable: no CPS involvement, investigation only, and supervision by CPS after investigation. Results-The relationship between work and involvement with CPS differs by work experience prior to welfare reform. As the percentage of months working after welfare reform increased, the risk of being investigated by CPS declined among those with prior work experience but the risk increased among those without prior work experience. However, work variables were not significant predictors of supervision by CPS after an initial investigation. Further, race, cohabitation, childhood welfare receipt, having a learning disability, having a large number of children, being newly divorced, living in a high problem neighborhood, and being convicted of a crime were associated with one's probability of being either investigated or supervised by CPS.Conclusions-These findings suggest that employment could have increased the stress levels of current or former welfare recipients without prior work experience to the point where they were prone to minor child rearing mistakes that resulted in a CPS investigation, but were not severe enough to warrant opening the case for supervision. Supports should be provided to welfare mothers who are prone to involvement with CPS; expansions in the childcare subsidy and a reduction or delay in work requirements might also help these families.

Child Maltreatment and Children's Developmental Trajectories in Early to Middle Childhood

“…Our reliance on self‐reports of CPS involvement is consistent with other analyses that have used large population‐based samples (Nam, Meezan, & Danziger, ). Nonetheless, an important concern is that respondents may underreport.…”

Parental spanking of 1-year-old children and subsequent child protective services involvement

“…A potential limitation of this study is that, similar to some prior research that also used large representative samples of families (e.g., Berger et al, 2009; Nam et al, 2006; Zolotor et al, 2008), CPS involvement is based on maternal self-report rather than administrative (or at least independent) data. Administrative or independent report of CPS involvement is not available in the FFCWS.…”

“…The variable for CPS involvement was based on the question, “Since the child was born, has Child Protective Services contacted you about any child or children in this household?” (0= no , 1 = yes ). Following precedent established by other researchers (Berger, Paxson, & Waldfogel, 2009; Nam, Meezan, & Danziger, 2006), these families were considered to be CPS involved (e.g., to have been investigated or assessed by CPS) because CPS is unlikely to contact a family regarding a “screened-out” child maltreatment report. For those who indicated having had CPS involvement, a subsequent question asked the month and year of the most recent CPS contact.…”

Income and child maltreatment in unmarried families: evidence from the earned income tax credit

“…Unfortunately, because no existing national, longitudinal survey includes both income data and administrative data on CPS involvement, self-reports are commonly used in population-based studies (Berger et al, 2009; Lee et al, 2014; Nam et al, 2006; Slack et al, 2011). Prior research documents consistency in the predictors of both self-reported and administratively documented CPS involvement, as well as in the magnitudes of association between these predictors and each measure (Slack et al, 2011).…”