Methodology
Recurrence of Allegations After Exit
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 safety measure reflects the percentage of children who left a foster care placement episode with an exit reason of Reunification, KinGAP Guardianship or non-KinGAP Guardianship within a 12 month period for whom there were maltreatment allegations during the subsequent 6, 12, 18 or 24 month time periods. The user may select one of the exit groups or may include all three exit groups. The allegations are available by disposition types. The denominator is the count of children exiting a foster care placement episode during the 12 month base period; the numerator is the count of the children in the denominator who had at least one allegation in the 6, 12, 18 or 24 month period following their departure from foster care.
The user may specify whether the Federal requirement allegation “risk” types is to be met. If this Federal standard is applied, allegation codes: 5001, "At risk, sibling abused" and 5624, "Substantial risk" are excluded. Incoming ICPC children always are excluded.
Note that if the Federal standard is not applied the proportion of foster care exits with subsequent allegations will be greater.
One allegation is included for each referral. Linked referrals are combined to form a single referral consisting of the primary referral, any referral(s) associated with a primary referral and any other referral on the same child received within one day. If the allegations in the combined referral are different or if they have different dispositions, the allegation with the most serious disposition type is retained in the following order: substantiated, inconclusive, unfounded and assessment only. If there is more than one allegation with the same level of disposition, the most severe allegation type is retained according to the allegation type severity hierarchy established by CWS/CMS (see additional details in the “Allegation Type” link provided below). In the following paragraphs the term “allegation” refers to the single allegation for each referral, or combined referral, identified using this process.
The denominator includes the first placement episode exit for each child in the base period that meets the exit type requirements as described above. Each child is reported no more than once in each base period. Therefore, the selected exits are essentially a sample of the exits that occurred during the base period, and this sample will be refreshed each quarter. For the subsequent allegations, all allegations in referrals received during the selected time period ending 6, 12, 18 or 24 months after the base referral was received are considered. From those allegations, the allegation with the most serious disposition type and, within that group, the most severe allegation type is selected. This process is distinct for each base period disposition class.
This differs from other allegation reports and for this reason the
reports are not directly comparable.
Allegation Report Differences
for details.
For summary tables, the total of all counties will usually be higher than the total for California, since a child may have left care in more than one county during the base period.
County is assigned using the county specific code from the assignment table corresponding with the exit date during the specified 12 month base period. Age in this analysis is based on the first exit (placement episode end date) during the specified base period.
Note: There are slight discrepancies in the denominator for this report and the sum of exits to Reunification, Kin-GAP, and Guardianship from the Exits from Foster Care report - http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare/Exits.aspx. We are currently working to determine the source of these discrepancies.
Cells containing a period (".") represent a value of zero. In cells representing quotients, a period may also indicate the indeterminate form 0/0.
This measure may also be run with filters in place to restrict the data to various subgroups of other variables (e.g., Black subgroup of the Ethnicity variable,<1 year old subgroup of the Age variable, etc.). The age variable applies to the age at the time of the base referral.
Agency Type
Days in Care
Age Group
Ethnic Group
Sex at Birth
First Placement Type
First Caregiver Relationship
Allegation Type*