Child Protection Services

A Child Protection Services (CPS) intake is created when an intake worker receives a report alleging or suspecting the abuse or neglect or one or more children. Child abuse and/or neglect may occur as an incident or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or other caregiver that results in harm, potential for harm, or threat of harm to a child. Child abuse and/or neglect may occur in child's home, or in a provider setting such as foster care or child care. Different jurisdictions have developed their own definitions of what constitutes child abuse.

The intake report requires staff to answer many questions including: Is the child safe? If not, how quickly do we need to respond? These front door questions have major implications for child safety and for agency workload. Once it is clear that the allegation(s) meet the definition of child abuse/neglect-related, the criteria for determining the urgency of response must be considered.

The child protection intake process clearly identifies factors that determine if and how quickly staff should respond to new child abuse/neglect referrals. This results in greater consistency among workers and also permits administrators to easily convey the criteria they use to decide how the agency deals with abuse and neglect referrals. The process is intended to help manage diminishing resources (i.e. investigators) while continuing to ensure the safety of a child in need of assistance. In addition, classifying and prioritizing referrals helps determine what would be considered timely or practical with regards to the initiation of an investigation from a report. This key indicator has been defined globally as a primary consideration, as documented by New Zealand's new differential model approach, the United States' CFSR Safety Indicator and can be used to address the UK's Every Child Matters "Staying Safe" outcome.

Use of the screening and response priority assessments is optional for an agency and is not required as part of the intake process. Cúram supports use of locally preferred assessments with products such as Intelligent Evidence Gathering (IEG). IEG is used to present questions, applicable answers and collect assessment data. Either Cúram Decision Assist (CDA) or Cúram Eligibility Rules (CER) can be used to determine the assessment results. Such assessments could be completed by intake workers during the intake process and results are used to help the workers determine the screening recommendation and/or response time.

Allegations captured during the intake are assessed to determine the need for an investigation. Current types of child abuse/neglect are listed below. These types may be modified as deemed appropriate by the agency.

• Physical Abuse - physical injury to a child,

• Neglect/Deprivation - a child's basic needs such as food and shelter, are not being met,

• Sexual Abuse - sexual activity with a child under the age of consent, and

• Emotional Maltreatment - non-physical behavior such as verbal abuse.

CCS offers the flexibility to capture multiple allegations for the same intake case. Each allegation will have an Alleged Maltreater and Alleged Victim.

The Child Protection Services and Unknown types also include the ability to capture allegation details, including the type of allegations, the alleged victim, the alleged maltreater (if known), and the location of the alleged maltreatment and the time of the alleged maltreatment. A Child Protection Services Intake involving an out-of-home placement will also include the ability to capture details regarding the out-of-home care provider. Details include the name and location of the out-of-home care provider, as well as any other children for whom the out-of-home care provider may have access.