The overrepresentation of poor children in child welfare is a public health issue not a reporting problem
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The overrepresentation of poor children in child welfare is a public health issue not a reporting problem
Source: Jonson-Reid, M., Drake, B., & Kohl, P.L. (2009). Is the overrepresentation of the poor in child welfare caseloads due to bias or need? Children and Youth Services Review, 31(3), 422–427.
Reviewed by: Nico Trocmé
Poor children are significantly overrepresented on child welfare
caseloads. The Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and
Neglect (Trocmé, Fallon, et. al, 2005)1, for instance, found that
nearly a quarter (24%) of maltreated children lived in families
dependent on social assistance, and another 19% lived in families
where the primary source of income was seasonal or part-time work
or no known source of income. While this overrepresentation is
certainly in part explained by the fact that poverty is a risk
factor for maltreatment, some critics raise concern that poor
families are also more likely to be reported because they are
scrutinized more closely.
Jonson-Reid, Drake and Kohl test the class bias hypothesis using
longitudinal data drawn from child welfare services as well as
census, health, and corrections from a Midwestern city in the
United States. They compare poor children with no child
maltreatment reports, poor children with investigated child
maltreatment reports, and non-poor children with investigated child
maltreatment reports. Compared to non-poor children reported to
child welfare, poor reported children generally presented a higher
risk profile, more severe forms of maltreatment and higher rates of
recidivism (64% vs. 33%). In other words there appears to be
an inverse class bias whereby poor families must display higher
levels of difficulties before child welfare services become
involved.
Comparing poor non-reported children to poor reported children, the
study finds that the reported children and their families presented
a much higher risk profile; for example the reported children’s
parents were four times more likely to have a documented mental
health problem. These findings indicate that poor families are more
likely to be reported for child maltreatment because of the array
of stressors and risk factors that they face rather than because of
higher levels of scrutiny or class bias. The authors aptly conclude
that rather “than see child welfare as an active force engaging
families without need, an alternative is to view the reporting
system as a means to identify higher risk families, and to channel
services to these families and the areas in which they live” (p.
427).
1 Trocmé, N., Fallon, B., MacLaurin, B., Daciuk, J., Felstiner, C., Black, T., et al. (2005). Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect – 2003. Ottawa, ON: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 148 pages.
Methodological Notes:
The data was extracted from California’s Child Welfare Services
Case Management System. Limiting sample to first-time placements
eliminates the problem of children with multiple placements during
the study’s frame of study. In California, counties are the child
welfare administration jurisdictions; Alameda contains variation in
relevant variables such as poverty and ethnic differences. At the
time of the study Alameda had a population of about 1.4 million
residents, approximately 360,000 of which were children; about 15%
of maltreatment allegations were substantiated, and about
two-thirds of these resulted in a placement (child placements per
year ranged from 841-1033 during the study period). Analyses were
conducted using three different spatial scales — census tracts,
census blocks and zip codes — to “minimize the tendency to commit
the ecological fallacy, whereby conclusions are drawn about smaller
units or individuals based on results from aggregated areas”
(p.332). Data are cross-sectional and do not take into account
individual case characteristics and cannot infer the causal link of
the statistical relationship.
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