Families that experience poverty-related stressors such as income insecurity or loss, material hardship, and housing hardship or instability—in other words, families with a financial inability to provide for their children—are also more likely to come into contact with the child welfare system. The intersection of poverty and economic insecurity with neglect poses a challenge to child welfare agencies when they respond to reports of maltreatment. Of all maltreatment types, neglect is particularly difficult to identify and define because it involves the omission—rather than the commission—of actions that can harm children. Untangling whether a child’s unmet needs are due to poverty or to some other factor is difficult, which begs the question: To what degree do child welfare agencies include income-related factors in their definitions of child maltreatment? The answer is different in every state.
Our team used the State Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) Policies Database—a new resource funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation and developed in collaboration with Mathematica and Child Trends—to examine differences in state definitions of child maltreatment and neglect for the inclusion of income-related factors. We found that:
All states include at least one broad income-related factor in their definitions of maltreatment. While states are not required to specify subtypes of maltreatment that are considered neglect, most states do so anyway. As shown in the map below, nearly one third of the 45 states that make this distinction include five or more income-related factors, and all but three states include at least one. Income-related factors include inadequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, hygiene, nutrition, and supervision—all of which can be byproducts of poverty and financial insecurity.
To read more of Sarah Catherine Williams, Reva Dalela, and Sharon Vandivere's article, please click here.
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