Objectives: To present new estimates of the average lifetime costs per child maltreatment victim and aggregate lifetime costs for all new child maltreatment cases incurred in 2008 using an incidence-based approach. Methods: This study used the best available secondary data to develop cost per case estimates. For each cost category, the paper used…

This article describes a community assessment process designed to evaluate a specific child welfare jurisdiction based on the current definition of trauma-informed child welfare and its essential elements. This process has recently been developed and pilot tested within three diverse child welfare systems in the United States. The purpose of the…

This study examined various predictor variables that were hypothesized to impact secondary traumatic stress in forensic interviewers (n = 257) from children's advocacy centers across the United States. Data were examined to investigate the relationship between organizational satisfaction, organizational buffers, and job support with secondary…

This article examines the importance of context in evaluative inquiry. Following guidelines from real-world and utilization-focused evaluation frameworks, four projects are described to illustrate one foundation's pragmatic approach to evaluation that values collaboration, methodological appropriateness, and utilization. The authors contend that…

It is widely acknowledged that, across the United Kingdom and the USA, childcare practitioners often struggle with cases of child neglect, because of the difficulties involved in attempting to define the problem at hand, and balancing these cases with others in the caseload that may appear more pressing, such as physical abuse. Consequently, in an…

Kimberly Howard and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn examine home visiting, an increasingly popular method for delivering services for families, as a strategy for preventing child abuse and neglect. They focus on early interventions because infants are at greater risk for child abuse and neglect than are older children. In their article, Howard and Brooks-Gunn…

Citizen Review Panels (CRPs) for Child Protective Services are groups of citizen-volunteers throughout the United States who are federally mandated to evaluate local and state child protection systems. This study presents a profile of 332 CRP members in 20 states with regards to their demographic information, length of time on the panel, and …

There has been considerable interest in recent years in comparing the operation of social work services for children and families internationally, particularly between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Reviewing the respective policy environments and drawing on recent research experience in these three nations, the author…

New federal legislation requires states to develop policies to refer children younger than age 3 with substantiated cases of abuse or neglect to state Early Intervention (EI) systems. This article presents state-by-state estimates of potential referral and enrollment increases for EI. Many states could experience a significant increase in…

A key social indicator of the well being of a society is the health and welfare of their children. Child maltreatment is a major problem in the U.S. and the world and the reporting of maltreatment has been the subject of much research and debate. However, little is known about self-reports of child maltreatment. Children face many obstacles that…

"Part C Updates" is a compilation of information on various aspects of the Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities (Part C) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This is the tenth volume in a series of compilations, which included two editions of Part H Updates, the former name of the…

Child welfare struggles to manage child abuse and neglect and to seek permanency for children, while being culturally responsive to the communities it serves. Family group conferencing, piloted in New Zealand and now used in the United States and other countries, is a strengths-based model that brings together families and their support systems to…

Some studies suggest lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) teens are at higher risk than peers for violence at home, in school, and in the community. That can bring them into the child welfare system or services for runaway and homeless teens. This study compared self-reported experiences of sexual and physical abuse based on sexual orientation and…

The purpose of this study is to examine the longitudinal course of intimate partner violence (IPV) among female caregivers of children receiving child welfare services. Data are derived from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a national probability study of children investigated for child abuse and neglect in the United…

Objective: To present key findings from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Maltreatment (CIS) in sufficient detail to provide a basis for international comparisons in terms of forms and severity of maltreatment and the age and sex of victims. Method: A survey conducted in a random sample of 51 child welfare service areas across Canada…