Examining the role of the parent-caseworker relationship in child maltreatment decision-making

ABSTRACT

Child welfare (CW) professionals are charged with investigating reports of alleged child maltreatment and determining whether and what type of maltreatment has occurred. Multiple factors contribute to the difficulty of making maltreatment-related decisions. The Decision-Making Ecology (DME) as developed to capture the various factors – beyond child safety-related information – that influence CW decision-making, ranging from family-to community-level factors. This study examined how the relationship between CW-involved parents and child protective caseworkers affects maltreatment-related decision-making. We propose that this relationship independently influences CW decision-making processes and should be included in the DME framework. Finally, we make recommendations to CW agencies that would improve maltreatment decision-making processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Child welfare
• child maltreatment
• child protection
• decision-making ecology
• child welfare decision-making

Acknowledgments

We want to thank all of our interview participants for their time, thoughtfulness and candor, and Meredith Manze for her contributions to the original study’s findings.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This article builds upon the first author (ET)’s Ph.D. dissertation, What happened to this child? Identifying factors that influence the identification and categorization of child maltreatment in the United States, available at https://academicworks.cuny.edu/sph_etds/39

2. Many child welfare administrators are former caseworkers; as such their comments may be relevant to both their managerial and direct practice experience.

3. One of the parent interview recordings ended early, so the participant was provided with both the transcript and the interview’s notes to review; this quote was in the interviewer’s notes and was approved by the interview participant.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded, in part, by a Dean’s Dissertation Award from the City University of New York School of Public Health.

Notes on contributors

Erika Tullberg

Erika Tullberg is an Assistant Professor at NYU Langone Health’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where her work focuses on the trauma-related needs of children that have experienced maltreatment and the related needs of their parents and the caretakers, staff and systems that serve them. Dr. Tullberg earned her PhD at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, her MPA and MPH at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Mailman School of Public Health, and AB at Columbia College. She is also the adoptive parent of two foster care alumnae.

Wendy Vaughon

Wendy Vaughon is a Lecturer at the School of Urban Public Health at City University of New York’s Hunter College, and has worked with a range of public and private organizations on qualitative research design, program evaluation, and usability testing. She received her DrPH from the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, her MPH from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and her AB from Brown University in Psychology.