Conducting Risk Assessments

Risk Management and Child Welfare in Ontario
Conducting Risk and Safety Assessment Using Standardized Tools
Case Management, Service Planning; Developing Tasks and Objectives
Using Signs of Safety to Assess Risk:
  - What are we worried about?
  - What’s working well?
  - What needs to happen next?
In-Class Activity

Definition of Risks in Child Welfare:
  - Refers to poor social environmental conditions that place children at risk of maltreatment.
  - Child protection workers often focus on protection decisions, which can create oppressive climates for families.
  - Emphasizes the concern that social workers may prioritize protection decisions over the best interests of the child.
  - Current risk management procedures may justify and legitimize the social control exerted by social workers over families' lives.
  - In a neo-liberal framework, risk management acts as a means to control resources and restrict access to services and supports for families requiring child protection services.

Concept of Risks:
- Risks, dangers, or uncertainties are often fabricated or constructed in modern society.
- Power dynamics, social inequality, and risk are interlinked.
Key Questions:
  - Who determines what constitutes risk?
  - Who profits from risk management?
  - What are the responsibilities associated with managing risk?

Managing risk involves decision-making power; those who make decisions can potentially manipulate risk factors.
- A significant power imbalance exists between those defining risks and those managing them (frontline workers versus service users, typically parents).
Trust and Insecurity:
- The anticipation of negative outcomes, or catastrophe, negatively affects public trust in the institutions created for family management.

Increased awareness of severe cases such as child deaths and abuse leads to collective anticipation of risk, fostering a lack of trust in child-rearing institutions.
- This societal awareness results in the implementation of risk assessment tools aimed at managing and controlling potential child maltreatment and mitigate public scrutiny.

Purpose of ORAM:
- A risk assessment tool designed to guide investigations into potential child abuse and neglect.
Basis:
- ORAM is based on a model used in New York State.
Components:
  - Incorporates a locally developed Eligibility Spectrum to determine service eligibility by child welfare authorities.
  - Two main types of risk assessment models used worldwide:
    - Actuarial: Relies on numerical calculations derived from large population samples.
    - Clinical/Consensual Approach: Allows professional judgment to rate risk elements. Ontario uses this second approach.
Goals of ORAM:
- To foster structured and rational decision-making in case practice without replacing professional insights.
Implementation Process:
- Child Protection Workers receive training and documentation to ensure comprehensive information gathering regarding potentially risky situations, which includes the severity rating and analysis of various risks.
- ORAM is digitalized, requiring extensive labor to compile information within outlined timeframes as per Ministry guidelines.

A high proportion of child welfare clients are impoverished.
The Canadian Incidence Study reveals that 20% of such clients receive welfare benefits.
Child welfare clientele frequently includes young, single-parent families living in rental housing and engaged in low-income employment.

Framework for Causes of Maltreatment:
  - Root causes outlined within four principal systems:
    1. The Child
    2. The Family
    3. The Community
    4. The Society

While children are not culpable for the abuse they endure, specific characteristics increase the likelihood of maltreatment.
Notable Risk Factors:
  - Disabilities: Children with disabilities have a significantly increased risk of abuse (Crosse, Kaye, & Ratnofsky, 1993; Schilling & Schinke, 1984).
  - Age and Gender:
    - Younger children tend to be neglected.
    - The risk of sexual abuse escalates with age (Mraovick & Wilson, 1999).
    - Female children and adolescents are at a higher risk for sexual abuse compared to male children.

Health and Developmental Factors:
- Premature birth, birth anomalies, low birth weight, exposure to toxins or teratogens (harmful drugs).
- Specific Temperament: Difficult or slow warm-up tendencies, along with physical, cognitive, or emotional disabilities, chronic or serious illness, and childhood trauma.
Social Behaviors:
- Anti-social peer group affiliation, age-related aggression, behavior problems, and attention deficits.

Personality Attributes:
- Poor impulse control, depression/anxiety, low frustration tolerance, insecurity, lack of trust.
Parent-Child Interaction:
- Negative attitudes and attributions about the child’s behavior, inaccurate perceptions or knowledge regarding child development.
Historical Factors:
- Insecure attachment to own parents, childhood history of abuse, high parental conflict, including domestic violence.
Family Dynamics:
- Family structure such as being a single-parent household without support, large households, social isolation, substance abuse issues, and separations/divorces, especially those marked by conflict.

Economic Factors:
  - Low socioeconomic status stemming from unemployment and homelessness leads to:
    - Stressful life events.
    - Lack of access to medical care, health insurance, adequate childcare, and social services.
    - Increased social isolation.
    - Living in violent or dangerous neighborhoods.
Community Issues:
- Exposure to community violence and various social inequalities, including racism/discrimination and environmental toxins.
- Lack of social support broadly contributes to childhood vulnerability and risk.

Child Protective Factors:
- Good health, history of adequate development, above-average intelligence, and engagement in hobbies and positive peer relationships.
Personality Traits:
- Easy temperament, positive disposition, active coping style, positive self-esteem, good social skills, and internal locus of control.

Secure Attachments:
- Positive and warm relationships between parents and children, along with supportive family environments.
Family Structure:
- Established household rules/structure, proactive parental monitoring, involvement from extended family, and stable parental relationships.
Parental Competency:
- Parents serve as role models of competence and demonstrate effective coping strategies, together with a family expectation for pro-social behavior and high educational attainment.

Economic Stability:
- Families that benefit from mid to high socioeconomic status exhibit better outcomes.
Access to Services:
- Availability of healthcare and social services, consistent parental employment, and adequate housing enhance child well-being.
Community Engagement:
- Participation in family religious activities and enrollment in good schools.
- Presence of supportive adults outside the family serving as role models/mentors to children.