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Social outrage and organizational behavior: a national study of child protective service decisions
- Authors:
- JAGANNATHAN Radha, CAMASSO Michael J.
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 77, 2017, pp.153-163.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
In this paper, the authors extend to child protection services (CPS), a risk model commonly used in the fields of environmental science, food safety and chemical engineering, where risk is conceptualised as a function of both technical hazard and social outrage. They argue that child fatalities resulting from maltreatment and the social outrage they often engender serve to influence CPS operations by altering CPS worker and child welfare organisational decision rules. In the empirical analyses, the authors test for an independent effect of social outrage (captured by child fatalities) on worker decisions while controlling for hazard and other relevant determinants. They also test whether this relationship is mediated by child welfare reform measures undertaken via judicial interventions or class action litigation. Using data from NCANDS (n = 1122 state-year observations over a 22 year time period across all 50 states and District of Columbia) and panel regression methods we show that social outrage caused by child fatalities significantly and directly influence child welfare worker decisions to: accept a referral of alleged maltreatment for investigation, substantiate reports of maltreatment, and place children out-of-home. (Edited publisher abstract)
The crucial role played by social outrage in efforts to reform child protective services
- Authors:
- JAGANNATHAN Radha, CAMASSO Michael J.
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 33(6), June 2011, pp.894-900.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
This article asks whether widely publicised examples of child abuse and neglect offer viable guidance in improving the effectiveness of child protective services (CPS). The authors argue that not only do such archetypical cases and the attendant moral outrage serve as catalysts for legislative and judicial actions; they also motivate structural and procedural changes in CPS operations. The article proposes using a risk model in CPS commonly used in the fields of environmental science, food safety and chemical engineering, where risk is conceptualised as a function of both technical hazard and moral outrage. The proposed enhanced risk model is called the Socially Outraged Risk Expression (SORE). The article suggests that unlike these non-CPS fields where the typical response is to manage outrage via public relations campaigns, in the CPS field where children are the focal point, exceptional decision processes also seep into routine decision making by necessity. Recommendations for empirical testing of SORE are presented.
Experimental evidence of welfare reform impact on clinical anxiety and depression levels among poor women
- Authors:
- JAGANNATHAN Radha, CAMASSO Michael J., SAMBAMOORTHI Usha
- Journal article citation:
- Social Science and Medicine, 71(1), July 2010, pp.152-160.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
Data from the New Jersey Family Development Program (FDP) was used to examine the claim that welfare reform which requires women on public assistance to work and/or enrol in job training causes increases in their psychological distress, particularly increased anxiety and depression. FDP was a welfare reform designed to reduce levels of welfare dependence and increase dependence of recipients on employer-funded jobs. To evaluate the welfare reform impact 8393 women were randomised into two groups, one which stressed welfare-to-work and the other which offered traditional welfare benefits. They were followed from 1992 through 1996. Information on clinical diagnoses was collected quarterly from physician treatment claims to the government Medicaid program. Intention to treat estimates showed that for short-term welfare recipients FDP decreased the prevalence of anxiety by 40% and increased depression by 8%. For black women both anxiety and depression diagnoses declined while Hispanic women experienced a 68% increase in depression. Policy implications are discussed.
Modelling the reliability and predictive validity of risk assessment in child protective services
- Authors:
- CAMASSO Michael J., JAGANNATHAN Radha
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 22(11/12), November 2000, pp.873-896.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
In a time of shrinking resources policy makers and administrators in Child Protective Services are increasingly turning to tools such as structured risk assessment to manage service demand. The reliability and predictive validity of risk assessment is questionable, however, and concerns continue about the validity of using lists of explicit criteria in protective services decision-making. In this research the issues of reliability and validity are addressed using an explicated confirmatory factor analysis model. Results show that a widely used risk assessment instrument exhilbits high levels of measurement error and increasing stability over tiem, whcih limit the instrument's capacity to predict new allegations of abuse and neglect.
Risk assessment in child protective services: a canonical analysis of the case management function
- Authors:
- JAGANNATHAN Radha, CAMASSO Michael J.
- Journal article citation:
- Child Abuse and Neglect, 20(7), July 1996, pp.599-612.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
Examines the relationship between levels of risk and the patterns of service intervention in child protective services in the United States of America. A stratified, random sample of cases from the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services was examined using canonical correlation techniques. Risk was measured using the Washington Risk Assessment Matrix while case management and service strategies were recorded from case records. Principal results indicate that three distinctive risk profiles operate in the data: older children with behaviour problems, children from disadvantaged households, and children with an unemployed parent. Each can be linked to a distinctive service intervention pattern. Implications of these results for workflow management and workload are discussed as well as the implications for future research in the areas of risk assessment and case management.