ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

The purpose of this study was to understand the criteria that child protective services(CPS) workers use for child maltreatment substantiation. Eleven CPS workers participated in in-depth interviews, and qualitative data were analyzed to identify meaningful categories and themes. The results showed four themes: the balance between guidelines and experiences, children’s characteristics and needs, perpetrators’ characteristics, and workers’ and agencies’ characteristics. CPS workers utilized guidelines given by the CPS system, by which they were told that substantiation should be based on the occurrence of maltreating behaviors and harm to children. However, the workers experienced a gap between the realities and the guidelines when they encountered complicated cases where the occurrence of maltreating behaviors and harm to children was not clearly observed. As the workers gained more experience, they came up with their own criteria for substantiation for these unclear cases. These criteria included characteristics of children and perpetrators such as child’s age, child’s opinions and needs, perpetrators’ emotions at the time of incidents reported to the CPS, perpetrators’ attitudes during the investigation process, perpetrators’ beliefs in how to discipline their children, and possibility of improvement in parenting through the CPS intervention. In cases of child neglect, perpetrators’ intention was also considered for making dispositions. The worker’s criteria and investigation processes varied by individual or agency characteristics. This variance was because workers’experiences and characteristics, as well as characteristics of others within their agencies, such as their supervisors, had impact on the way disposition decisions were made. Based on the results, it was discussed how the CPS can make better decisions on child maltreatment substantiation.

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