Methodology
CFSR4: Safety Performance Area 1
Maltreatment in foster care

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.

Federal/CWS Outcomes Measure: Of all children in foster care during a 12-month period, what is the rate of victimization per day of foster care?

This report is restricted to the most recent 11 calendar years.

Denominator: The denominator is, of children in foster care during the 12-month period, the total number of days these children were in foster care as of the end of the 12-month period. Complete foster care episodes lasting <8 days are excluded. Youth age 18 or more are excluded, as well as youth in foster care at 18 or more. For youth who start out as 17 years of age and turn 18 during the period, any time in foster care beyond his/her 18th birthday is not counted in the denominator.

Note: the count of placement days differs between the denominators of the federal measures 4-S1 and 4-P5 and the Placement Days report in several ways:

1. 4-S1 includes placement episodes of 8 days or more. 4-P5 counts days for placement episodes that opened during the specified year (i.e., entries to care) and remained open for 8 days or more. The Placement Days report counts all days in care, regardless of time in care. Note: The Placement Days report can be filtered for entries during the year (In Placement before Period Start = 'No'), which approximates 4-P5, but counts placement days for entries, regardless of time in care.
2. For all three reports, age is calculated at the beginning of the period or at entry (if the child enters during the period). 4-S1 and 4-P5 include children under age 18 while Placement Days includes children under age 21. *Note - for 4-S1 and 4-P5, a child's 18th birthday and following care days are not counted in the denominator. Therefore, for a child who turns 18 in care during the period and remains in care, additional days will be added to the count in the Placement Days report, but not in 4-S1 and 4-P5.
3. The 4-S1 and 4-P5 denominators include Adoptive Placements, Trial Home Visits, and Runaways. Non foster care placements are also included if the placement episode includes other foster care placement types. The Placement Days report excludes Adoptive Placements, Trial Home Visits, Runaways and non foster care placements from the denominator.

Due to these differences in the count of placement days methodology, even when similar filters are applied, the reports will yield different results.

Numerator: For the children in the denominator, the numerator is the total number of substantiated or indicated reports of maltreatment (by any perpetrator) with either (1) a referral received date (REF_RCV_DT) during an open placement episode with no reported abuse start dates or (2) at least one abuse start date (ABUSE_STDT) during an open placement episode. Reports made within the first 7 days of removal are excluded and two reports made within one day of each other are treated as a single report using the earlier date (see below). Only one date, the earliest of the referral received date and any abuse start dates, is used for each referral. Thus a referral received during an open placement episode where the earliest reported abuse start date is before the start of the placement episode, and not in another placement episode, is not included in the numerator. Conversely, a referral received after the end of a placement episode where the earliest abuse start date is during an open placement episode is included in the numerator. Although reports made within one day of each other are combined, the excluded subsequent maltreatment report is not considered an initial maltreatment report in its own right. That is, if there are reports on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Monday report is included, the Tuesday report is excluded, and the Wednesday report is included.

Performance: Performance for this measure is the numerator divided by the denominator, expressed as a rate per 100,000 days. The rate is multiplied by 100,000 to produce a whole number which is easier to interpret.

These rates differ slightly from federal numbers reported by the Children's Bureau due to limitations resulting from the construction of the NCANDS and AFCARS files.

National Performance: The National Performance for this measure is ≤ 9.07 per 100,000 days. For details, please see CFSR Technical Bulletin 13 (PDF).

Extension of Federal Measure: In the drill-down reports for this measure, data may be viewed for a selected 12 month period or periods by agency type, age, ethnic group, and/or gender.

Notes:

• County County is assigned in this analysis using the county specific code from the case assignment table (or, if this information is not available, using the county specific code from the referral table, or if this information is not available, using the government entity type from the state id table) active on the first day of the specified time period for children in care on that day or at the placement episode start date for children who enter during the time period.
• Agency Type is assigned based on the responsible agency on the first day of the specified time period for children in care on that day or at the placement episode start date for children who enter during the time period.
• Age is assigned based on how old a child is on the first day of the specified time period for children in care on that day or at the placement episode start date for children who enter during the time period.
• Please note: we recognize there may be data quality issues with this measure.
  However, data for this analysis are reported as entered in the CWS/CMS System per ACL numbers 03-61 (http://www.cdss.ca.gov/lettersnotices/entres/getinfo/acl03/pdf/03-61.pdf)
  and 05-09 (http://www.cdss.ca.gov/lettersnotices/entres/getinfo/acl05/pdf/05-09.pdf) which provide instruction and clarification on reporting requirements.

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

Stratification and Filters: This measure may be run with filters 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.). Please see the links below for details:

Agency Type

Age Group

Ethnic Group

Sex at Birth

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