Details of 2009 Child Maltreatment Data Released

June 16, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

New information released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides more details about the number of allegations of maltreatment of children in 2009 and how the complaints were handled.

In 2009, there were an estimated 3.3 million referrals involving alleged mistreatment of about 6 million children made to Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies in the United States. The number of referrals stayed about the same in 2009 as it was in 2008.

In addition, an estimated 3.6 million children were the subject of one or more assessments or investigations. About 62 percent of all referrals were screened in for investigation or assessment by CPS agencies. Slightly more than 76 percent of investigations or assessments found that the child was not a victim of maltreatment.

Of all maltreatment reports filed in 2009, about 58 percent came from professionals (including investigators), 16.5 percent came from education personnel, about 16 percent from law enforcement and legal workers, and slightly more than 11 percent came from social workers.

There were 763,000 duplicate abuse or neglect victims in 2009 and the number of estimated unique victims in this situation was 702,000.

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The Influence of Race, Income, and Risk on the Substantiation Decision in Child Welfare

June 15, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Children and Youth Services Review

This study uses data from the Texas child welfare system to identify the factors that contribute to disparities in substantiating allegations of child neglect or abuse. The analyses in the study control for the effect of family income, as well as other factors related to maltreatment in order to better understand whether race plays a role in substantiating allegations.

Findings show that when family income is controlled, race is not a significant factor in the substantiation decision. However, when also controlling for a caseworker’s perception of risk, race emerges as a stronger explanatory factor. This could suggest that there is an important relationship between income, race, and risk assessment.

Results from the study also show the effect of racial bias on decision-making remains an important factor to consider when trying to understand the overrepresentation of African-American children in the child welfare system. African-American children represent 30 percent of all children in foster care, even though they make up just 15 percent of all children in the general population.

Although research has been effective in documenting the disparities in the child welfare system, it has been less effective at being able to document the factors behind them. For instance, some studies have shown that race is a significant factor at various decision-making points, while others have shown that it is not a factor.

The report notes that more than 96 percent of children who are placed in out-of-home care are involved in investigations in which allegations of mistreatment are substantiated.

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Developing a Tool for Assessing Risk of Inpatients’ Aggressive Behavior

June 15, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

This study assessed the Brief Rating of Aggression by Children and Adolescents (BRACHA) tool to test whether it was helpful in predicting which adolescent psychiatric patients might be aggressive toward hospital staff or their physicians. The study involved administering the BRACHA questionnaire – consisting of 16 questions along with various demographic data – to 418 children and teenagers during the admissions process for the psychiatric units at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Hospital personnel then recorded any incident of aggression that occurred during the patient’s first six days of hospitalization.  The period was limited to six days to make the analyses consistent.  Overall, a total of 292 aggressive acts were committed by 120 hospitalized patients (29 percent). Of the 292 incidents, 102 were verbal, 81 were toward objects, 63 were toward others, and 46 were toward self.

The study confirmed that 14 of the 16 questions on the survey were significantly associated with aggression by children and teenagers.

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The Economic Value of College Majors

June 13, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

The report released by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, not only outlines the economic value of obtaining a bachelor’s degree, but which degrees carry the highest wages.

The report states that on average a full-time, full-year worker with a bachelor’s degree can expect to make 84 percent more over a lifetime than a colleague who has no better than a high school diploma. At the extreme, the highest earning major earns 314 percent more at the median level than the lowest-earning major at the median level. The report notes that earning potential should not be the sole reason why a student chooses a particular major, but, nevertheless, it should be something that the student considers.

The report gets its data from the 2009 American Community Survey results which included questions on what one studied in college. The most popular majors, according to the data, were business management and administration (8 percent), general business (5 percent), Accounting (5 percent), and nursing (4 percent). In comparison, the least popular majors include military technologies, soil science, and pharmacology (all less than 1 percent of all majors).

The three most popular majors ranged in salaries at the median from $58,000 to $63,000.

Petroleum Engineering is by far the highest-earning bachelor’s degree major with median earnings of $120,000. It is followed by pharmaceutical sciences and administration at $105,000 at the median; and mathematical and computer science with median earnings of $98,000.

On the other hand, the lowest paying majors are counseling psychology with median earnings of $29,000; early childhood education with median earnings of $36,000; and theology and religious vocations and human services and community organization, both of which have median earnings of $38,000.

Majors that earn the most also have the most extreme variations in earnings. For example, petroleum engineering has a variation of $107,000 between earnings at the 25th and 75th percentiles.

Female bachelor’s degree holders typically earn the most with a degree in pharmaceutical sciences and administration (median $100,000); information sciences (median $75,000); and chemical engineering (median $72,000).

However, male bachelor’s degree holders earn the most with a major in petroleum engineering (median $120,000); pharmaceutical sciences and administration (median $110,000); and chemical engineering (median $92,000).

Although bachelor’s degree majors often link to occupations, no one major is perfectly linked to a particular occupation.

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Treatment of Abuse of Drugs Like Xanax and Valium Is Up Sharply

June 10, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Treatment for abusing benzodiazepine – a class of drugs including Xanax, Valium and Halcion that is commonly used to treat insomnia, seizures and anxiety disorders— nearly tripled from 1998 to 2008, according to a study released this week by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

The study found that substance abuse treatment admissions involving benzodiazepine abuse among  those 12-years-old and over increased from 22,400 in 1998, to 60,200 in 2008 – more than a 268 percent rise. In comparison, overall treatment admissions for all substances in the same time frame rose by 11 percent.

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Civic Engagement and Community Information

June 10, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L.Knight Foundation

The paper by Peter Levine of Tufts University, released by the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the Knight Foundation, calls for elected and community leaders to adopt strategies that help fortify citizen engagement and civic communication.

Proposals include creating a Civic Information Corps that would take advantage of the considerable capacity and broad knowledge young Americans have of digital media. Levine suggests that an Information Corps would have a significant impact on the environment and health of local communities.

Other strategies that Levine proposes include engaging young people in building the information and communication capacity of their respective communities, adjusting higher education incentives to turn these institutions into local information centers and mapping the civic networks that exist within communities.

Levine suggests that the adaptation of these strategies will allow local communities to tap into the expertise and innovative attitudes of citizens to create public knowledge and culture that would ultimately benefit the whole community.

He notes that community service and service-learning have grown in the United States and now represent an important resource for communities’ information needs. Levine states that this is a positive change and one that can be utilized to reconstruct the public sphere — although the changes will require reforming service programs as well.

Levine writes that colleges and Universities can be used as central information hubs because they already play a central role as neutral sponsors, brokers, curators and disseminators of information for their local communities. Levine says that some higher education institutions have even replaced some of the functions of the traditional metropolitan daily newspaper.

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Student Health Essential to Increase Academic Performance

June 07, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

California Healthy Students Research Project

The California Healthy Students Research Project is aimed at finding a link between student performance and physical and socio-emotional health and well-being.

This report shows that children who are physically active are more likely to perform better in the classroom. However, only 15 percent of teenagers and 30 percent of children get the recommended amount of physical activity each day.

Research also show that well-nourished students find it easier to concentrate in school, which relates to the California free or reduced lunch program. Although 50 percent of California public school students are eligible for the program, only 28 percent of students participate in it.

Students are also more likely to attend school and focus when they feel safe in the environment. Despite this, 37 percent of California secondary school students report bullying or harassment at school in the past year. Overall, fewer than 60 percent of students feel safe at school.

The report stated that students who experience caring and connection at school score better on tests and are less likely to drop-out or engage in negative behaviors. Among ninth graders, 31 percent said they have high levels of caring relationships with adults at school, while 47 percent felt as if adults had too high of expectations for them. In addition, 12 percent felt as if they had meaningful opportunities to participate in class.

When students are emotionally healthy, they are less likely to have development and behavioral problems. In one California city, students who were given access to school-based mental health centers showed a 30 percent decrease in absences and failures and a 95 percent decrease in disciplinary action.

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Non-income Effects of Welfare Receipt on Early Childhood Cognitive Scores

June 10, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

Children and Youth Services Review

New research conducted at the University of Missouri and Central Michigan University looks at the effect that federal welfare programs have on children.

The study uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to find out what the non-income effects of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) are on children’s early cognitive development.

Results from the research show that participation in TANF is associated negatively with cognitive development.

The study notes that among Westernized nations, the United States has the highest child poverty rate at 19 percent.

To this point, studies that have been conducted generally have concluded that receipt of welfare benefits has a marginally small negative effect on children’s educational attainment, while controlling for family income. However, those studies focused on the Aid to Families with Dependant Children (AFDC) program and not the TANF program.

This new study focuses on the early childhood period that has been shown to be when the home environment is at its greatest level of importance.

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Promoting Full-Time Attendance among Adults in Community College

June 02, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

MDRC

This report by MDRC evaluates a New York City program that is targeted at low-income adults ages 22 to 35 who need remedial course work to succeed in community college.

The program is a part of MDRC’s nationwide Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration. The New York City program operated at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and Hostos Community College in 2008 and 2009.

Students who participated were eligible for either a $1,300 scholarship for two consecutive semesters, or for a $1,300 scholarship for two semesters and also a summer term. As part of the requirements for the scholarships, students had to maintain at least part-time enrollment, meet attendance requirements and keep a “C” average across at least six credits.

The PBS evaluation randomly assigned about 1,500 low-income students to one of two program groups eligible for either scholarship, or to a control group eligible for regular financial aid only.

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Children in Foster Care Down 22 Percent in Decade

May 31, 2011 by Andrew Atwal

The total number of children in foster care continues to decline – down about 22 percent from 2000 to 2009 – new data released by the federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Report System (AFCARS) show. The results are now in Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count Data Center.

According to the new data, at the end of 2009, there were 423,773 children in foster care in the United States, 120,530 fewer than there were in 2000.

However, despite the decline in the number of children in foster care, the type of setting in which a child is placed has remained largely unchanged at the national level since 2000.

Forty-eight percent of children in foster care in 2009 were with non-relative foster families; 24 percent were with relatives; 16 percent were in group homes or institutions and 13 percent were in other settings. Other includes supervised and independent living, pre-adoptive homes, trial home visits and runaways.

Most experts believe that placing children with relatives or other caregivers with whom they are familiar reduces the inevitable trauma of being removed from their parental homes.

Previous research shows that youth who live in institutions or group homes are at a higher risk of developing physical, behavioral or emotional problems that ultimately can lead to negative outcomes. These children are also less likely to find a permanent home compared to those living with foster families.

In general, the data showed that younger children are much more likely to be living with foster families, whereas older children are more likely to be in group homes or institutions.

Thirty-three percent of children ages 1 to 5 are placed with relatives compared to just 11 percent of those 16 years and older. Additionally, only about 1percent of children ages 1to 5 are placed in group homes or institutions, compared with about 36 percent of those ages 16 and older.

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