Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Child maltreatment may be both a cause and consequence of poverty, and therefore, policies targeted at reducing child maltreatment may be able to interrupt the intergenerational cycles of both of these outcomes. It was generally thought that Child Protective Service's (CPS's) investigative protocols and processes had the potential to create an adversarial climate between CPS and the family, which was ultimately counterproductive to strengthening families and protecting children who were at risk, especially low risk, of repeat victimization. To address this, in the 1990s states or counties within states began exploring a differential or alternative response system, which conducts family assessment and service delivery rather than investigations among low-risk referrals.

The goal of this research is to better understand the effects and in particular long-term effects of differential response. I will use the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS): Child File for the years 2000 to 2012 to generate a series of difference-in-difference estimates to determine if differential response has had an effect on jurisdictions' overall child referral rate, the overall child substantiation rate, the overall foster care entry rate, and the overall revictimization rate. I will construct a variety of treatment and comparison groups. I will begin by comparing the change in outcomes between states with and without this policy, but I will also compare changes within states. This will involve exploiting states' variation in the cases eligible for differential response as well as county-level implementation of the policy.

Differential response may reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty in two ways: by stopping the cycle of violence against children and by linking families to services that may assist them economically. It is a promising approach in child welfare, but the children and families affected by this policy deserve some evidence that it is working as intended.