Children With a Disability, Physical Abuse, Entry Into Out-of-Home Care, and Stability of Out-of-Home Placements
Helton, Jesse J.
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Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/72574
Description
Title
Children With a Disability, Physical Abuse, Entry Into Out-of-Home Care, and Stability of Out-of-Home Placements
Author(s)
Helton, Jesse J.
Issue Date
2009
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Testa, Mark F.
Department of Study
Social Work
Discipline
Social Work
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Social Work
Abstract
Children with a disability are arguably the most vulnerable and least understood population facing Child Protective Services (CPS) today. The need to understand their unique maltreatment vulnerabilities and evaluate the effectiveness of safety interventions prompted this dissertation. Because of the dearth of information, the sequence of empirical papers in this multiple manuscript dissertation attempted to follow a child with a disability from the experience of maltreatment through a variety of CPS decisions. All empirical studies used the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), CPS sample.
Before the first empirical study, Chapter 1 provided a general overview of why children with a disability may be more vulnerable to maltreatment victimization, how CPS responds to these vulnerabilities, and identifies gaps in child welfare research. Chapter 2 described both the overall theoretical model for the dissertation. Chapter 3, the first empirical study, examined the association between continuous measures of disability functionality and experiencing physical assault for children 3 to 9. Results indicated a negative curvilinear relationship between level of social and daily living functionality and severe physical assault. Meaning, children who scored the lowest and highest on individual disability measures were the least likely to be assaulted.
Chapter 4 examined how the state responds to children with a disability by way of protective interventions and whether children with a disability were more likely to enter out-of-home care compared to children without a disability. Children with a disability ages 6 to 10 were more likely to be removed from care following an investigation compared to all other children. Chapter 5 examined whether the stability afforded to children 3 to 9 living with an out-of-home kin caregiver extended to children with a disability. Although these children were more stable than non-kin placements, children with a disability were more likely to disrupt. Chapter 6 provided an overall conclusion to the dissertation by linking each of the chapter's findings together with the overall theoretical model. Future direction of research was discussed, as well as implications for practice and policy.
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