Co-Occuring Intimate Partner Violence and Child Maltreatment

Project Summary for 2002-WG-BX-0014 Policies and practices to protect women affected by Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) vary across regions, and may influence the placement of children, services for the family and residential stability of the maternal-child dyad, especially when co-occurring child maltreatment is present. The purpose of this project is to improve outcomes for women, children and families affected by IPV in the presence of co-occuring child maltreatment through research on state, county and local variation in policies and practices. Our goals are to: 1) Describe the variation policies/practices related to the issue of co-occurring child maltreatment and IPV; 2) assess the relationship of these policies/practices with placement of children in out of home care; use of family preservation services and residential stability for maternal/child dyads; and 3) report on outcomes for cases in the child welfare system with co-occuring IPV known or unknown to caseworkers. The National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) is a three year, representative survey of 92 primary sampling units (mostly counties) in 36 states including 5504 children and their families in the child welfare system. The subject children range in age from 0-14 years. We will re-survey the 92 participating Primary Sampling Units with snowball sampling to identify best informant. This contextual data on policies/practices will be confidentially linked to the NSCAW survey data. Hierarchical models are used to examine variations in policies/practices, identify association between these and outcomes, and examine the impact of co-occuring IPV that is known to the child welfare system compared to IPV reported by women but known to caseworkers. Ca/ncf Ca/ncf