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This report presents the findings from the Local Agency Survey component of the National Study of Child Protective Services Systems and Reform Efforts. The study was designed to describe the national status of the child protective services (CPS) system and to characterize any reform efforts underway. Acknowledging the state of change that currently exists within the field of CPS and the dynamic nature of the relationship between policy and practice, the CPS systems are being studied from three main perspectives — the State policies and mandates that define CPS functions and specify how these functions are carried out; local CPS agency organization and practices that implement CPS functions; and innovative reform efforts that seek to restructure, redefine, or reformulate the purposes and functions of CPS. These perspectives and the data collection methods used to address them are briefly detailed below.
The overarching responsibility of the CPS agency (most commonly a division or unit within a child welfare department) is to provide the initial response to the needs of children who may have been abused or neglected. Given this mandate to conduct the first response to potential critical emergencies, much of CPS policy focuses on what conditions require a response and what type of response is required.
The first study component addressed policy and consisted of a review of State policy manuals and followup interviews with State administrators. The State policy review focused on those policies and mandates that relate to three primary CPS functions — screening, investigation, and alternative response.(1)
The review began with extensive reviews of State policy manuals. Next, the Study Team interviewed State CPS administrators to confirm and expand upon the information obtained from the policy review. The interview protocol included separate sections for each CPS function. Each section began by establishing a definition for the function in question and the criteria used in carrying out the function.(2)
The second study component examined the functions and operational practices conducted by local agencies in order to meet the State and local mandates and policy requirements. This component was addressed through a Local Agency Survey (LAS) of a nationally representative sample of local CPS agencies. The LAS included questions about the organizational structure of the local CPS agencies, the procedures by which the key CPS functions were carried out at the local level, and the ways in which local CPS agencies interfaced with other governmental and community agencies to conduct key CPS functions. The LAS used the findings from the State policy review as a backdrop for the design of the survey and adopted a similar structure and organization in terms of topical areas within the survey. This report presents the findings from this component.
The third component examined the innovative approaches being implemented in local agencies to address the mandates and policies of CPS and explored the degree to which practice is changing to include these new reform efforts. The nature of cutting edge reform is such that there are unique practices that cannot necessarily be anticipated or fully captured through highly structured interview questions that have been wholly formulated in advance. As a result, this research area required an open-ended qualitative approach that examined the problems that the reform efforts sought to address, the critical features of the reform effort, and the results of the reform effort. Consequently, the primary data collection effort in this area involved site visits to a small sample of local CPS agencies to document some of the changes in the field. The agencies were selected based upon their responses to a module in the LAS that asked CPS agencies to describe any recent changes in a number of key areas related to operation and functions of CPS.(3)
The National Study of Child Protective Services Systems and Reform Efforts was structured around three research components. The emphasis of the State policy review was on the ways in which State CPS mandates and policies defined the roles and key functions of the CPS, as well as the ways in which State mandates and policies provided criteria that guided the manner in which the key CPS functions are carried out. The emphasis of the LAS was the organization of CPS and the procedures by which the key CPS functions were carried out. Finally, the local site visits emphasized current directions in agency practices for carrying out key CPS functions.
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The objective of the LAS was to obtain detailed information on the types of activities that were conducted under the rubric of child protective services (CPS) practice at the local agency level and to describe variations in practice throughout the nation. This survey effort was a pioneer in the field because it collected information about CPS agency practice from a nationally representative sample of agencies. In the past, the understanding of how CPS agencies operate has relied on anecdotal information, focused studies in local jurisdictions, or purposive samples that provided an incomplete view of CPS agencies. The national perspective of the LAS offered a unique opportunity to quantify the distribution of CPS agencies in terms of how the work was conducted in different realms.
The LAS focused on CPS work in terms of determining:
The survey also sought to document the range of reform efforts or changes underway around the Nation. Across all of these areas, the LAS was designed to help understand the commonalities and differences found among programs and practices across the Nation.
The LAS sampling procedures were designed to select a nationally representative sample of counties, stratified by whether they were county- or State-administered child welfare systems, and by whether they were considered to be urban or rural. Census regions were also taken into account to ensure that the county sample was spread evenly across regions. Using these stratifications, a total of 375 counties were sampled. All local CPS agencies that served the sampled counties were targeted for LAS data collection.
The LAS used a modular questionnaire to determine the functions and practices of local CPS agencies. The Administration Module collected information on the basic organization of the agency. Three modules focused on the functional areas of CPS work — the Screening/Intake Module gathered data on the screening practices of the agencies; the Investigation Response Module collected information on the manner in which the agency conducted investigations of alleged maltreatment; and the Other CPS Response Module enabled agencies to describe alternative approaches to responding to allegations of maltreatment other than traditional investigations. Finally, the fifth module — New Directions Module — asked agencies to document recent changes in CPS practice.
For each module, the person most knowledgeable about CPS practice in the particular topical or functional area was asked to respond to the survey questions. While a single individual may not have been able to give a fully comprehensive description of agency practice, relying on the most knowledgeable person for each module helped ensure a reasonably accurate portrayal of practice without placing undue burden on each agency.
The data collection procedures involved State recruitment, agency recruitment, survey distribution and retrieval, and nonresponse followup. Together, these procedures resulted in an 80 percent response rate.
The survey data were entered into a database and weights were developed. Weighting took into account the probability of selecting the local CPS agencies and adjusted for nonresponse, allowing the LAS data to produce national estimates. The final analysis file was configured at the agency level so that it contained a unique agency record for each responding agency. The sum of all the agency-level final weights provided an estimate of the number of local CPS agencies in the nation equal to 2,610 agencies. Because all LAS findings are presented as national estimates derived from a sample, their statistical precision is qualified by sampling error. This report provides estimates of the numbers and percentages of the Nation's 2,610 local CPS agencies with different practices and procedures, with the precision of the estimates indexed using the 95 percent confidence interval.(4) As an example, the 95 percent confidence interval for the estimated national total of 2,610 local CPS agencies is 2,410 to 2,810 agencies.
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This report is organized into a series of chapters that discuss the analytical findings from the LAS. Chapter 2 describes the survey findings related to the structure and organization of CPS agencies. It presents information in terms of both estimates of CPS agencies with the various characteristics and of the population of children served by CPS agencies. Chapter 3 examines local agency practices and procedures for receiving and screening child maltreatment referrals and provides details on the screening/intake function with sections on the receipt of referrals, the processing of referrals, and the role of the State hotline. In Chapter 4, the findings related to both the investigation response and the alternative response are provided in terms of the types of responses, the response features and activities, the roles of workers and supervisors, and the difficulties encountered in conducting the response. Chapter 5 discusses findings related to the role of law enforcement. Chapter 6 describes the degree and types of change within CPS agencies. Chapter 7 presents the examples of change based on site visits to local agencies, and Chapter 8 provides discusses difference among agencies by administrative structure. Chapter 9 provides a summary conclusion.
Appendix A provides detail on methodology.
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1. Alternative response is a maltreatment disposition system that provides for responses other than "Substantiated," "Indicated," and "Unsubstantiated." In this type of system, children may or may not be determined to be maltreatment victims. Although the survey module was labeled "other CPS response," in the report the term "alternative response" is used.
2. The report, Review of State CPS Policy, of the National Study of Child Protective Services Systems and Reform Efforts, is available on the Internet site for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/CPS-status03. Posted: 2003.
3. The Site Visits Report, of the National Study of Child Protective Services Systems and Reform Efforts, is available on the Internet site for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/CPS-status03. Posted: 2003.
4. The 95 percent confidence interval (C.I.) indicates that, if the study were to be repeated with the same methodology 100 times, 95 of the replications would produce an estimate within the interval.
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