M Evangelist et al. Child Abuse & Neglect; 2023; 136: 105994. Child protective services contact and youth outcomes

Methods: The study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study of children born in 20 US cities. Study outcomes were “based on age-15 interviews with the focal children and their caregivers with sample sizes ranging from 2088 to 2327 across outcomes. The relationship between CPS contact and child wellbeing was estimated using the propensity score method of inverse probability of treatment weighting.”

Key findings:

“Despite a federal mandate to improve child wellbeing, we found no evidence that contact with the child welfare system improves child outcomes. Rather, CPS contact was associated with worse mental health and developmental outcomes” including associated increases in smoking (88% increase), in being expelled from school (18% increase), in depression (7.5% increase, and in anxiety (6.9% increase).

My take: While protecting children and reporting abuse/neglect are mandated, it is not clear that involvement of CPS results in better outcomes.

Related blog posts: A Cautionary Tale –Is it Medical Child Abuse?