Child abuse, neglect and CPS

Federal law sets a floor and every state builds above it. The floor, in the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, is any recent act or failure to act by a parent or caretaker that results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, or sexual abuse or exploitation — or that presents an imminent risk of serious harm. Most states go wider than that, reaching conduct that creates a substantial risk rather than an imminent one.

• Neglect is failure to provide for a child’s basic needs — food, shelter, supervision, medical care, education. It is the largest category by a long way and the one most often misunderstood.
• Physical abuse is non-accidental physical injury. Where the line falls between discipline and abuse is a state-law question and the answers differ.
• Sexual abuse, in the federal definition, covers the use, persuasion or coercion of a child into sexually explicit conduct, and rape, molestation and exploitation, including statutory rape within caretaker or family relationships.
• Emotional or psychological maltreatment is recognized in every state and is the hardest to substantiate, because the harm is real and the evidence is not photographic.
• Child endangerment is usually a criminal charge rather than a child-welfare finding, and the two systems run separately. Ohio’s version, for example, makes it an offense for a parent or custodian to create a substantial risk to a child’s health or safety by violating a duty of care.

42 U.S.C. § 5106g(a)(2) and (a)(4); Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect: Summary of State Laws, Children’s Bureau; Ohio Rev. Code § 2919.22.

These are the federal numbers for the 2023 fiscal year, and they change how you should read everything else on this page.

And the composition of those findings is the part nobody expects. Neglect is not one category among several — it is almost two thirds of everything the system substantiates.

What that means for a divorce. Roughly half of all referrals never become an investigation at all. Of those that do, most concern neglect. The category that dominates custody-case accusations — sexual abuse — is under eight per cent of substantiated findings nationally. That is not a reason to disbelieve a child. It is a reason to know where you are on the map.

Child Maltreatment 2023, Administration for Children and Families. The federal PDF refuses automated readers, so these figures were taken from three independent citations of the same report, which agree.

From the Children’s Bureau’s own description of how the system works. The words differ by state — substantiated, indicated, founded, confirmed — and mean roughly the same thing.

• The report is screened. A hotline worker decides whether what you described, if true, meets that state’s definition. Just over half of referrals are screened out here.
• A response is assigned, and there are two kinds. A traditional investigation asks whether maltreatment occurred and who is responsible. An alternative or differential response, used in many states for lower-risk reports, skips the culpability question and works on what the family needs. Which track you are on changes everything about how it feels.
• The clock is short for emergencies. Florida requires an investigation to begin immediately, at any hour, when a child’s immediate safety is endangered. Ohio requires investigation of every report within 24 hours. California counties triage into immediate and ten-day response categories. Those three we have read.
• A finding is made — substantiated, unsubstantiated, or in some states inconclusive.
• Then, sometimes, a safety plan or a court petition. These are not the same thing and the difference is the most consequential thing on this page.

Mandated reporters are defined by profession in most states: health-care workers in 46 states, teachers and school staff in 44, social workers in 41, law enforcement in 40, mental health professionals in 38, child care providers in 36, clergy in 29. Four states — Indiana, New Jersey, North Carolina and Wyoming — require every adult to report, and thirteen more list professions and separately impose a universal duty. Florida is one of the universal ones.

Two practical consequences during a divorce. Your child’s therapist, teacher and pediatrician are almost certainly mandated reporters, and a disclosure to any of them starts a process neither of you controls. And in a universal-reporting state, you are a mandated reporter — including about the other parent’s household.

Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect: State Statutes, Children’s Bureau; Ohio Rev. Code § 2151.421; Fla. Stat. § 39.201.

Forensic Interviewing: A Primer for Child Welfare Professionals, Child Welfare Information Gateway.

• If you have been accused — the other side of this page: rights, remedies, and what a finding does
• Abuse and the divorce case
• Protective orders: how they work
• Changing custody
• Who speaks for your child
• Talking to the children