Methodology
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Notes on Source Data

IMPORTANT NOTE: The following methodology may include references to report features not available on the public site version. On the public site, masking is performed to protect the privacy of individuals served by CDSS and comply with CDSS data de-identification guidelines. Values of 1 to 10 and calculations based on values of 1 to 10 are masked ('M' or '*'). In stratified views of the data, additional values (the lowest available) are masked to prevent calculation of values 1 to 10.

This report examines the distance, in miles, between a child's removal address and placement address at 12 months. This analysis looks only at those children who are in a first foster care placement episode (or spell) and who are still in care one year after entry.

Frequencies and proportions of children placed less than 1 mile, 1-5 miles (i.e., from one mile up to but not including six miles), 6-10 miles (i.e., from six miles up to but not including eleven miles) and 11 or more miles, are stratified by kin or non-kin placement type.

Cells containing a period (".") represent a value of zero. In cells representing quotients, a period may also indicate the indeterminate form 0/0.

Note: Caution should be used when examining the frequencies of children placed at different distances from their removal address. In a number of cases, a child's removal and/or most recent placement address was not entered into CWS/CMS. For these children, a distance could not be computed and was coded as ‘*Unknown’. We have included the frequencies with Unknown distances as a guide for counties as they work to improve the quality of data input to CWS/CMS. However, we have excluded them from the proportion calculations. That is, the proportion of children placed at different distances was based on only those cases which had both a removal and placement address.