Kristen S. Slack

Understanding the risks of child neglect: an exploration of poverty and parenting characteristics

A strong association between poverty and child neglect has been established, but the mechanisms that explain this relationship have not been clearly articulated. This research takes advantage of survey and child maltreatment administrative data about families with young children and assesses the influence of poverty and parenting characteristics on subsequent child neglect. The authors find that indicators of poverty, such as perceived material hardship and infrequent employment, and parenting characteristics, such as low parental warmth, use of physical discipline, and allowing a child to engage in frequent television viewing, are predictive of child neglect. Parenting characteristics do not appear to mediate the link between perceived hardship and neglect, although they suppress the link between employment and neglect. Results from this study provide information that is highly relevant to the approach and design of child maltreatment prevention and intervention strategies.

The gift of kinship foster care

Abstract This study examines kinship foster care as a gift relationship. Reunification rates and replacement rates into non-related foster care are analyzed within the statistical framework of competing risks to examine the effects of reciprocity, payment, empathy, and duty on the dynamics of kinship foster care. The study makes use of a unique set of survey data on 983 kinship foster children in Cook County, Illinois. Survey responses are linked to computerized administrative records from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to create a 5-year longitudinal file on placement changes from June 30, 1994 to June 30, 1999. Children whose parents were reported as regularly visiting and working toward regaining custody (reciprocity) were more likely to be reunified and less likely to be replaced than children whose parents were reported as non-cooperative with visitation and service plans. Controlling for reciprocity, children were also less likely to be replaced if caregivers retained the full foster care subsidy (payment), reported a good relationship with the child (empathy), and grew-up in the American South and attended church regularly (duty). The sensitivity of these findings to alternative specifications of the competing risks of foster care replacement and kinship transfers is reported.

Food Hardship and Child Behavior Problems among Low‐Income Children

Using data from two waves of a panel study of families that currently receive or recently received cash welfare benefits, this article examines the relationship between food hardship and behavior problems for two different age groups (3–5 years and 6–12 years). Results show that food hardship is positively associated with externalizing behavior problems for the older children even after controlling for parental stress, warmth, and depression. Food hardship is positively associated with internalizing behavior problems for the older group of children, and with both externalizing and internalizing behavior problems for the younger group of children. These effects are mediated by parental characteristics. Results suggest that practitioners who work with children should screen for food hardship as a potential source of behavior problems.

Are Welfare Sanctions Working as Intended? Welfare Receipt, Work Activity, and Material Hardship among TANF‐Recipient Families

This analysis utilizes longitudinal survey and administrative data on 1998 welfare recipients in Illinois to assess whether different types of grant reductions are associated with subsequent work, welfare receipt, and hardships. Results show that imposed sanctions are inversely associated with formal work and earnings, as well as with increases in informal work, other work activities, and food hardships. Threats to sanction are unassociated with formal work and welfare outcomes but positively associated with informal work, other work activities, and rent hardship. Greater knowledge of welfare rules is associated with more formal work, less welfare receipt, and less hardship.

The Effect of Additional Child Support Income on the Risk of Child Maltreatment

About 6 million children were reported to the child welfare system as being at risk of child abuse or neglect in the United States in 2010. Researchers and policy makers have long recognized that children living in families with limited economic resources are at higher risk for maltreatment than children from higher socioeconomic strata, but the causal effect of income, and particularly child support, on maltreatment risk has been challenging to establish; many of the same factors are associated with child support payment levels, poverty, and child maltreatment risk. Using a random assignment experiment that led to exogenous differences in child support received, the present analysis explores the causal role of a full pass-through and disregard of child support on the risk of child maltreatment. We find that a full child support pass-through, as compared to a partial pass-through, reduces the risk of child maltreatment.

Improving the Measurement of Child Neglect for Survey Research: Issues and Recommendations

There is a great need for developing and validating measures of child neglect that can be applied to survey samples outside of a child welfare context. A prospective assessment of child neglect would afford a better estimation of the etiology of various types of child neglect and would greatly inform the development of primary prevention strategies related to child maltreatment. This article offers guidance on the tasks involved with constructing new measures of neglect for prospective survey research. Methodological issues pertaining to child neglect measurement are discussed, and a framework is offered for developing neglect measures for survey research. A discussion is also offered on how this framework is being applied in an ongoing longitudinal study of low-income families with young children. The intended result of this exercise is to encourage the development of new child neglect measures for survey research with both high-risk and general populations.

Caseworker-Perceived Caregiver Substance Abuse and Child Protective Services Outcomes

The authors used data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being to examine associations of child protective services (CPS) caseworkers’ perceptions of caregiver substance abuse with their perceptions of the severity of risk and harm a child experienced as a result of alleged maltreatment, as well as with whether a family experienced a range of CPS outcomes. The outcomes included whether the family received services from CPS, was substantiated for maltreatment, experienced child removal, and was subject to a termination of parental rights (TPR) petition. The authors also compared the magnitude of the association between caseworker-perceived caregiver substance abuse and each outcome to that of the association between other maltreatment-related risk factors and each outcome. Findings suggest that, all else equal, caseworker-perceived caregiver substance abuse is associated with increased caseworker perceptions that children have experienced severe risk and harm and also with an increased probability of each of the CPS outcomes except TPR. Moreover, these associations are equal in magnitude or larger than those between the other risk factors and the outcomes. These findings imply that CPS decisions are heavily influenced by caseworker perceptions of caregiver substance abuse, regardless of the presence of other risk factors for child maltreatment.

Do Welfare Sanctions Increase Child Protection System Involvement? A Cautious Answer

This study assesses the relationship between various types of welfare grant reductions and subsequent child maltreatment reports in a sample ( \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape

Adverse childhood experiences and behavioral problems in middle childhood

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