A Study of Maltreated Children and Their Families in Juvenile Court. III. Case Plans

• Published date: 01 June 2014
• Date: 01 June 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jfcj.12022
• Author: Canan Karatekin,Jamie Lawler,Richard Gehrman

A Study of Maltreated Children and Their

Families in Juvenile Court. III. Case Plans

By Canan Karatekin, Richard Gehrman, and Jamie Lawler

ABSTRACT

We reviewed publicly available court records of 88 cases referred to juvenile

court for maltreatment in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The goal of the current

study was to examine the content of, and extent of compliance with, case plans. There

was an average of 9.5 items per child on the case plan. About half the case plans did

not address at least one presenting maltreatment type. Compliance was generally

high for items ordered for the children, and for cases that ended in family preserva-

tion. However, information on compliance was not included in the court records for

many of the items.

A STUDY OF MALTREATED CHILDREN AND THEIR

FAMILIES IN JUVENILE COURT. III. CASE PLANS

U.S. Child Protective Services received approximately 3.4 million referrals alleging

child maltreatment in 2011 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011).

When such reports are screened into Child Protective Services (CPS), a small proportion

of these cases eventually become subjects of proceedings in dependency, family, or

juvenile court. Despite a great deal of research on other aspects of the child welfare system

and on foster children, there is little peer-reviewed research published in academic

Canan Karatekin, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Child Development, University

of Minnesota. Dr. Karatekin’s research focuses on child maltreatment and other adverse childhood experi-

ences, domestic violence, the child welfare system, and implementation of evidence-based interventions for

children and families in the community. Dr. Karatekin received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the

University of California, Los Angeles.

Richard Gehrman, MBA, is the Executive Director of Safe Passage for Children, a community-based

advocacy organization aimed at improving the child welfare system in Minnesota. Mr. Gehrman received his

M.Div degree from Harvard Divinity School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Jamie Lawler, MA, is an advanced graduate student at the Institute of Child Development, Uni-

versity of Minnesota, focusing on adverse childhood experiences and interventions to promote positive

development in high-risk children. She received her MA in Child Psychology from the University of

Minnesota.

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Juvenile and Family Court Journal 65, No. 3-4 (Summer/Fall) 47

© 2014 National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

journals on the characteristics of families that are referred to court for maltreatment and

on the court proceedings themselves (Summers et al., 2008). Thus, more empirical

studies are needed on this topic, and the purpose of the current study was to conduct a

review of court records of families referred to juvenile court for child maltreatment. In

this manuscript, we focus on the case plans, that is, the list of items drawn up by CPS and

ordered by the judge, that put forth actions that caregivers must take to remedy the

conditions that led to maltreatment and that may also order services for the child.

Briefly, when a child is screened into the child welfare system by CPS in Minnesota,

a risk assessment results in the family being referred either to Family Assessment

Response, which focuses on providing services, or Family Investigation, which focuses on

investigating whether maltreatment occurred. In 2011, 69% of the families were routed

to Family Assessment Response and 29% to Family Investigation in Minnesota

(Minnesota Department of Human Services, 2012). Of the 29% families who were routed

into the Family Investigation track in Minnesota, maltreatment was determined for 58%.

Of families for whom maltreatment was determined, 50% were deemed to not need

services, and the case was closed. The remaining 50% were determined to need services,

and Children in Need of Protection or Services (CHIPS) petition was filed in juvenile

court for an unknown proportion of these children (David Thompson, Child Safety and

Permanency Division of Minnesota Department of Human Services, personal communi-

cation, 9/6/12). Overall, a CHIPS case was opened for 37% of all Family Investigation

cases, and approximately 4% of Family Assessment Response cases in Minnesota in 2011.

Given that the Family Investigation track had 5,185 cases and the Family Assessment

Track track had 12,243 cases, we can estimate that Minnesota had approximately 2,400

CHIPS cases that year. Although families with CHIPS cases represent a relatively small

proportion of all children screened into the CPS system, these families probably represent

the most severe instances of child maltreatment and consume a disproportionate amount

of resources.

The current manuscript is one of three manuscripts on the results of a study

conducted on maltreatment cases in juvenile court in the largest county in Minnesota,

Hennepin County (which includes Minneapolis). In one manuscript focusing on the

histories of the families (Lawler, Gehrman, & Karatekin, submitted), we reported that

three-quarters of the caregivers had previously been involved with CPS (especially those

with substance abuse problems), that about half had been involved two or more times,

and that a large majority had failed to follow through with voluntary services offered by

CPS. On average, about four years elapsed between the children’s first involvement with

CPS and the current case, the children had experienced an average of four changes in

caregivers by the end of the case, and 81% of children who had been reunified with their

parents had to be removed later due to repeat maltreatment. In a second paper

(Karatekin, Gehrman, & Lawler, 2014), we focused on the conduct of the case and showed

that guardians ad litem were appointed for almost all children and permanency deadlines

were followed or extended with good reason in most cases. However, we also showed that

a third of the children placed under Protective Supervision by the court were maltreated

again while under supervision and that a third of the children whose cases ended with

family preservation were still at risk for maltreatment at case dismissal.

48 | JUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT JOURNAL / Summer/Fall 2014