Testing the measurement properties of risk assessment instruments in child protective services

This study examined a population of children alleged to be at risk of abuse and the adult allegedly abusing the child for the purpose of identifying variables that were predictive of the child's risk of being abused. The study population consisted of 72 Brooklyn, New York children and the alleged adult abuser. These cases were investigated in the Child Protective Services office in Bedford-Stuyvesant by 12 workers who volunteered to participate in the research effort. The worker assigned to a case filled out the standard New York City case recording instrument (called the Child Protective Services Review Document, CPSRD for short), the Magura-Moses Child Well-Being Scales, and the Beck and Jones List of Problems and Conditions. In addition, the worker also evaluated the degree of risk of abuse that the child was exposed to from the alleged abuser using a supplemental scale created for this study. Our hypotheses were that variables from each of the instruments would be predictive of the case decision-making by protective service workers regarding the abuse to which a child was exposed, that the data from the Magura-Moses scales would have predictive value for a minority population, and that the data from the CPSRD would reflect unique dimensions of this population. The data from the 72 cases supported each of these hypotheses.