The relationship of child abuse indicators to the assessment of perceived risk and to the court's decision to separate.
The most serious decision taken in child abuse cases is to formally separate the child and the family. There has been concern that the criteria for making these decisions should be made explicit. The consequences of the separation for the child, family, and society is one set of reasons for this concern. Another is that with the increasing number of cases being reported, there is a need for reliable, consistent, and efficient decisions across cases. This paper operationally defines a set of indicators for the separation decision. One hundred fifty-two cases of suspected child abuse from the Royal Children's Hospital were coded in terms of the indicators and the outcome of the case. The outcome was the court's decision to separate the child. The study investigated whether and in what way these indicators were related to the separation outcome. In addition the perceived risk to the child was operationally defined, and the relationship of the indicators and the court's decision to perceived risk was studied. Statistical analysis of the data showed that the indicators most associated with the separation outcome were severity of abuse, parenting, and the family social system. Two important implications for practice are that information on explicit indicators should be recorded for cases, and that they can provide a base for training of new child protection workers.
Dalgleish
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Department of Psychology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia.
Drew
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EC
D001315:Australia; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D002651:Child Advocacy; D002655:Child Custody / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005190:Family; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D012307:Risk Factors