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Published on: September 19, 2019
Child protective services contact and youth outcomes
Michael Evangelist1, Margaret M C Thomas2, Jane Waldfogel1
1Columbia University, School of Social Work, United States of America.
Insights
Contact with Child Protective Services (CPS) was linked to negative child wellbeing outcomes, including increased behavioral issues and mental health problems. This study found no evidence that CPS involvement improves child welfare, despite federal mandates.
Area of Science:
- Child welfare research
- Developmental psychology
- Public health policy
Background:
- Limited research exists on the impact of Child Protective Services (CPS) contact on child wellbeing, independent of maltreatment.
- CPS contact is often used as a proxy for maltreatment, obscuring its direct effects.
Purpose of the Study:
- To estimate the association between CPS contact and child outcomes, including delinquency, education, substance use, and mental health.
- To investigate the independent effects of CPS contact on child wellbeing.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth cohort.
- Employed the propensity score method of inverse probability of treatment weighting to analyze CPS contact and child wellbeing.
- Sample sizes ranged from 2088 to 2327 for age-15 interviews with children and caregivers.
Main Results:
- CPS contact correlated with significant increases in smoking (88%), externalizing behaviors (29%), internalizing behaviors (27%), depression (7.5%), anxiety (6.9%), and impulsivity (6.0%).
- A reduction in happiness (6.2%) and an increase in school troubles (5.5%) were also observed.
- The probability of expulsion showed an 18% increase, though not statistically significant (p=0.32).
Conclusions:
- No evidence suggests that contact with the child welfare system improves child outcomes.
- CPS contact is associated with adverse mental health and developmental consequences for children.
- Findings challenge the effectiveness of current child welfare system mandates in promoting child wellbeing.
Background:
Few studies have investigated whether Child Protective Services (CPS) contact influences child wellbeing, independent of underlying maltreatment and not considered as a proxy for such maltreatment.
Objective:
The present study estimates the association between CPS contact and child delinquency, education, substance use, and mental health and development.
Participants And Setting:
The study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study of children born in 20 US cities. Study outcomes were based on age-15 interviews with the focal children and their caregivers with sample sizes ranging from 2088 to 2327 across outcomes.
Methods:
The relationship between CPS contact and child wellbeing was estimated using the propensity score method of inverse probability of treatment weighting.
Results:
CPS contact was associated with an 88% increase in the probability of smoking (p = .010), a 29 % increase in externalizing behavior (p < .001), a 27% increase in internalizing behavior (p = .001), a 18 % increase in the probability of being expelled (p = .32), a 7.5 % increase in a depression (p = .002), a 6.9 % increase in anxiety (p = .002), a 6.2 % reduction in happiness (p = .008), a 6.0 % increase in impulsivity (p < .001), and a 5.5 % increase in school troubles (p < .001).
Conclusions:
Despite a federal mandate to improve child wellbeing, we found no evidence that contact with the child welfare system improves child outcomes. Rather, CPS contact was associated with worse mental health and developmental outcomes.
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