Reforming child protective services.

Child welfare analysts, practitioners, and the general public all agree: the child protective services system (CPS) is in crisis and is in urgent need of reform. Children at risk are not being adequately protected, and they and their families are not receiving the services that they need. This article briefly reviews the problems facing CPS today, outlines a vision for reforming CPS, and suggests ways to move from today's CPS to the CPS of the future. The child protective services system (CPS) is mandated by law to receive and respond to reports of child abuse and neglect. CPS agencies respond to the reports in a variety of ways. If upon investigation, CPS finds that a child was abused or neglected, then usually the case remains open for longer-term CPS intervention. Depending on the severity of the maltreatment and the level of risk, the child might be removed from the home and placed in out-of-home care, or the child might remain at home under the super-vision of CPS or another agency. If, however, CPS finds that a child was not abused or neglected (or if CPS determines that a report does not warrant an investigation), then typically the family's case is closed and no further services are provided. As this brief description suggests, CPS workers make a series of decisions about children's safety. Each of these decisions is subject to error-at each step of the way, CPS may err by not providing sufficient protection to children, or by intervening too aggressively. Most observers of the system agree that the rate at which such errors occur is unacceptably high (see, for example, Schene [1998]; Besharov [1998]). Nationally, about three million children were reported to CPS in 1997 [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1999], a more than fourfold increase over the number reported just 20 years earlier [Waldfogel 1998]. As the number of reports has increased, so too has concern about the operations of the child protective services system. In 1988, the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators concluded that the CPS system was in need of an overhaul; this group called for a new three-tier system, comprising a more narrowly focused CPS, an expanded voluntary/preventive family support system, and an adequately funded child well-being system [NAPCWA 1988]. That same year, a collaborative effort of the American Bar Association, the American Public Welfare Association, and the American Enterprise Institute recommended revamping child abuse and neglect reporting and investigation; it specifically called for providing better guidance to reporters and tighter screening criteria (see Besharov [1988]). In the late 1980s, Kamerman and Kahn conducted their own multistate study, concluding that the states were so overwhelmed by their child protective responsibilities that they were unable to provide either quality child protection or child welfare services. They too called for major reforms within CPS, as well as a strengthening of the child welfare and child well-being systems [Kamerman & Kahn 1990a; 1990b], as did a study by the Center for the Study of Social Policy [Farrow 1993]. Around the same time, the American Public Welfare Association [19911 and the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect [1991; 1993] also issued major reports calling for reforms to CPS. The growing consensus that the CPS system was in need of overhaul was the impetus for the convening of an Executive Session on Child Protective Services at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1994. The Executive Session brought together a diverse group of individuals with knowledge and experience of the child protective services system to review the current state of CPS and make recommendations for reform. After a three-year review, this group also concluded that CPS was in need of major reform [Farrow 1997; Waldfogel 19981. Taken together, these reviews constitute a powerful critique of CPS today Cutting across these reviews are five common problems that must be addressed if CPS is to do an adequate job of protecting children [Waldfogel 1998]: 1. …