Maltreatment in care is a key measure of child safety. When the state removes a child the home, it is fair to expect that the state protect the child from further harm. However, some children who enter the foster care system remain at risk of maltreatment. Such maltreatment may be experienced in a foster family (related or unrelated), residential or even the parental home (e.g. trial home visit) setting. Michigan has been working diligently to understand the root causes of maltreatment in care and develop innovative policies and practices to help reduce the risk of maltreatment in care. An obstacle to significantly reducing maltreatment in care in almost every state is the relatively low probability of abuse or neglect occurring once children enter the foster care system. In 2019, only one state (Rhode Island) reported more than 2% of the foster care population experiencing a substantiated allegation of maltreatment . The vast majority of states hovered closer to 1% or less of the foster care population. Since 2015, the relative probability of experiencing maltreatment in care in Michigan ranged from .005 to .011. This means that between 98.9% and 99.5% of children in foster care did not experience maltreatment in care . Despite the infrequency of these events, it is important to continue to investigate and identify correlates within the child welfare system. The current project focuses on identifying factors that increase or decrease the risk of maltreatment in care. The project utilizes administrative data and unstructured text data (e.g. disposition summaries) to understand these events and the conditions surrounds such events.
