Child Welfare: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice

1. Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect: Changing Patterns of Reported Maltreatment, 1998 and 2003

1 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect: Changing Patterns of Reported Maltreatment, 1998 and 2003 Nico Trocmé Barbara Fallon Bruce MacLaurin Over the past 25 years, clinical research involving abused and neglected children has shifted the focus from battered and sexually abused children to understanding the emotional, social, and cognitive effects of a range of forms of maltreatment, including neglect, emotional maltreatment, and exposure to intimate partner violence. In response, a number of provinces and territories have amended their statutes, and professionals working with children have become far more aware of the risks associated with these forms of maltreatment . By describing the characteristics of children reported to child welfare authorities across Canada, the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS) provides an important perspective on these policy and service changes. Two national cycles of the CIS were completed in 1998 and 2003, in addition to the first province-wide incidence study completed in Ontario in 1993. This chapter describes the methodology of the CIS, and compares the results from the 1998 and 2003 cycles of the study. Findings in this chapter, including the tables, are based on results and tables published in the CIS–2003 Major Findings report published by the Public Health Agency of Canada (see Trocmé et al., 2005). Chapters 2, 3, and 4 discuss in more detail the characteristics of neglected children, the influence of location on service patterns, and the changing professional profile of staff conducting child welfare investigations . Chapter 21 includes information from the CIS–2003 on the characteristics of Aboriginal children referred to child welfare agencies. 23 CIS Methodology Information on children and families who receive child welfare services across Canada is generally not available at a national level. Some provinces have fairly elaborate province-wide information systems, while in other provinces most service information is available only at a local level. Variations in provincial and territorial statutes and service delivery models further complicate the task of producing national child welfare statistics. The CIS was developed to overcome these limitations by directly surveying child welfare staff responsible for intake investigations. The CIS is conducted every five years with core funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada and oversampling funding from a number of provinces, territories, and various granting agencies. The following section provides an overview of the sampling, measurement, and weighting procedures used. For more detailed descriptions of the methodologies used, readers are referred to the CIS–1998 and CIS–2003 study reports, available at no cost from the Public Health Agency of Canada (Trocmé et al., 2001; Trocmé et al., 2005). Sampling The CIS uses a stratified cluster sampling design that in the first stage selects a nationally representative sample of child welfare offices. In large offices with a large volume of investigations (over 100 a month), a second sampling stage was used to select a subsample of cases. The office level sampling varied in accordance to the structure of the office: in some instances, case selection moved from one team to the next with each team participating for two or three weeks; in others, a random or systematic sample was drawn. In two instances, team or worker participation was limited to a non-systematic group of volunteer workers. The CIS–2003 tracked a sample of 14,200 child maltreatment investigations conducted during the fall of 2003 in 63 out of 400 child welfare sites across Canada. Due to the large amount of missing data in the Quebec portion of the study, most of the analyses presented in the following chapters examine a smaller sample of 11,562 investigations conducted in 55 sites outside of Quebec and involving children up to 15 years of age. The CIS–1998 examined a sample of 7,672 child maltreatment investigations conducted in 51 out of 327 child welfare sites. TROCMÉ, FALLON, AND MACLAURIN 24 Measurement The CIS collects information directly from investigating workers using a threepage data collection form describing the alleged maltreatment, in addition to other child, family, and investigation-related information that includes: (a) child age, sex, Aboriginal status, and a child functioning checklist; (b) family size, structure,and housing conditions; (c) caregiver age,education,ethnicity,income, and a caregiver risk factor checklist; and (d) source of report, caregiver response to investigation, ongoing service status, service referrals, out-of-home placement , and child welfare court application, as well as police and criminal court involvement. A...