Making judgments about risk in substantiated cases of supervisory neglect

The purpose of this study was to determine which factors were used by investigators to determine level of risk among substantiated cases of supervisory neglect. The conceptual model included three sets of factors-the severity of the supervision problem, characteristics of the mother (e.g., prior involvement with child protective services (CPS), motivation, substance use) and characteristics of the investigator-as potential explanations for increased risk.

A case-control design was used to compare 113 mothers whose names were placed on the child abuse registry for substantiated supervisory neglect (higher risk) with 45 mothers whose names were not placed on the registry but who had a substantiated report of supervisory neglect (lower risk). Two readers coded every investigative report.

Five out of 14 of the predictors had a unique effect on the investigator's assessment of higher risk in the multivariate analysis: a child was harmed, the mother did not take responsibility for the problem, there was no extenuating circumstance, she was being battered, and she had prior involvement with CPS. There was also an interaction between being battered and the type of supervision problem. When a mother failed to protect her child from a third party, being battered decreased the likelihood that the investigator would place the mother's name on the state's registry.

More research is needed on specific types of supervision problems to develop a risk assessment instrument for supervisory neglect. Without one, it is difficult to see how investigators and others can be expected to know whether a child is likely to be harmed in the future.