Abstract

Child Protective Services ( CPS) have been under growing pressure to implement risk assessment systems over the past ten years (Dueck, H. J., English, D.J., Depanfilis, and Moote, G.T. (1993). This emphasis has come largely from the increasing number of reported allegations of child abuse and neglect (Doueck, et. al.) However, increasingly individuals involved in custody battles use the CPS reporting system to retaliate against one another. Because these reported cases require the action of CPS, the increase in allegations has overburdened the system. As a result, resources have diminished and challenges to screeners to make accurate risk assessments have been stretched (Doueck, et.al.). "The resultant strain on the protective services system has Jead some authors to question whether the system is capable of helping those children who are in most need (Wexler, R., 1990, Doueck, H.J., English, D.J. Depanfilis, D. and Moote, G.T. 1993)." Consequently, a method of structuring the risk assessment process is needed to enable agencies to improve workload pressures through a comprehensive method of classifying cases by risk assessment to accurately predict future mistreatment raises serious questions and needs to be. further examined.

The research question posed by this study is to what degree is risk assessment screening a prediction at the time of intake? The statement derived from this question is stated in a positive directional format:, Risk assessment screening will accurately predict the risk assessment findings verified during the intake process.

A systematic random sample of 60 was made of county case records opened between July 1, 1993 and June 30, 1994 were reviewed at county Department of Social Services offices in San Bernardino and Rancho Cucamonga, California. The analysis of the study's hypothesis and classification of additional findings made use of Kendall's Tau-b (a method of cross tabulation analysis), Discriminate Analysis, Chi Square and Multiple Regression Analysis. The antecedent variable is risk assessment and the consequent variable is risk assessment intake code. The amount of association found between the consequent and antecedent variables was significant at the .001 (p

LLU Discipline

Social Work

Department

Social Work

School

Graduate School

First Advisor

Beverley J. Buckles

Second Advisor

Hector Diaz

Third Advisor

Dianna Simon

Degree Name

Master of Social Work (MSW)

Degree Level

M.S.W.

Year Degree Awarded

1995

Date (Title Page)

6-1995

Language

English

Library of Congress/MESH Subject Headings

Risk assessment; Risk-taking (Psychology); Sex crimes

Type

Thesis

Page Count

iv; 54

Digital Format

PDF

Digital Publisher

Loma Linda University Libraries

Usage Rights

This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Collection

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collection Website

http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/

Repository

Loma Linda University. Del E. Webb Memorial Library. University Archives

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