Methodology:
CHILD ABUSE REFERRALS
Child Counts

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This report counts each child with a child abuse/neglect referral once for each analysis year.  If a child has more than one referral in a given year, they are counted in the cell considered to represent the most severe occurrence. In order to determine the appropriate cell, children are grouped in a two-step process:

1.       Disposition Outcomes:  Children with substantiated reports are counted first, followed by those with inconclusive reports, unfounded reports, and finally, children who had referrals but did not have a disposition (called assessment only). 

2.       Allegation Type:  Children are then grouped according to the allegation type severity hierarchy established by CWS/CMS (see additional details below). 

In the county-level tables, we have again counted each child once per year, but for each county in which a referral was made.  Thus, a child who has received referrals in multiple counties will appear in the table of each county where referred.  As a result, the sum of the children across county tables may not equal the total in the statewide tables.

In addition to overall statewide data, breakouts by age, ethnicity, gender, allegation type, and reporter type are provided as described below:

Age - Child age is organized by the following intervals:  < 1 yr, 1-2 yrs, 3-5 yrs, 6-10 yrs, 11-15 yrs, 16-17 yrs, and 18+ yrs. Children with missing birth date information, or those whose ages are computed to be less than 0 or greater than 20 years, are categorized as Missing.

Ethnicity – Child ethnicity is collapsed into five categorical variables based on 31 codes (i.e., 30 primary ethnicity type codes and a Hispanic origin indicator):

  1. Black (in CWS/CMS, Black, Ethiopian)

  2. White (in CWS/CMS, White, White-Armenian, White-Central American, White-European, White-Middle Eastern, and White-Romanian)

  3. Hispanic (in CWS/CMS, Hispanic, Mexican, South American, Caribbean, Central American, or those coded as being of Hispanic Origin)

  4. Asian/PI (in CWS/CMS, Asian Indian, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Guamanian, Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Other Asian, Other Pacific Islander, Hmong, Polynesian, Samoan, and Vietnamese)

  5. Native American (in CWS/CMS, Alaskan Native and American Indian)

    6.

Children for whom ethnicity is not coded are categorized as having a Missing ethnicity.

Gender - Child gender is categorized as Female, Male, or Missing.

Allegation Type – Children are grouped according to the allegation type severity hierarchy established by CWS/CMS: sexual abuse; physical abuse; severe neglect; general neglect; exploitation; emotional abuse; caretaker absence/incapacity; at-risk, sibling abused; and substantial risk.  Missing/Unknown allegation types are not included in the percent calculations.

Reporter Type – Referrals are grouped according to the following CWS/CMS designations:  Family/Friend, Neighbor, Law Enforcement/Legal, Social Services/Mental Health (MH), Day Care/Foster Care, Medical, Education, Other Professional, Other, and Missing/Unknown. Missing/Unknown allegation types are not included in the percent calculations.

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