[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 29 (Wednesday, February 12, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6546-6549]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-3469]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families
Children's Bureau/National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect
Proposed Research Priorities for Fiscal Years 1997-2001
AGENCY: Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF),
Administration for Children and Families (ACF), HHS.
ACTION: Notice of proposed child abuse and neglect research priorities
for fiscal years 1997-2001.
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SUMMARY: The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect/Children's
Bureau (NCCAN/CB) within the Administration on Children, Youth and
Families (ACYF) announces the proposed priorities for research on the
causes, prevention, assessment, identification, treatment, cultural and
socio-economic distinctions, and the consequences of child abuse and
neglect.
NOTE: The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) was
established in 1974 to carry out the functions of the Child Abuse
Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). Pursuant to Pub. L. 104-235, the
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act Amendments of 1996, the Office
on Child Abuse and Neglect (OCAN) will, in the near future, be
established by the Secretary for the purpose of coordinating the
functions and activities of CAPTA, replacing NCCAN.
Section 104(a)(2) of CAPTA, as amended by Pub. L. 104-235, requires
the Secretary to publish proposed priorities for research activities
for public comment and allow 60 days for public comment on such
proposed priorities. The proposed priorities are being announced for
the five year period that corresponds to the authorization period for
CAPTA. Because the amount of Federal funds available for discretionary
activities in Fiscal Years 1997-2001 is expected to be limited,
respondents are encouraged to recommend how the proposed issues should
be prioritized.
As research issues arise or new issues emerge through consultation
with other entities, additional announcements of proposed priorities
will be published for public comment.
The actual solicitation of grant applications will be published
separately in the Federal Register for
[[Page 6547]]
each fiscal year. Solicitations for contracts will be announced, at
later dates, in the Commerce Business Daily. No proposals, concept
papers, or other forms of application should be submitted at this time.
No acknowledgment will be made of the comments submitted in
response to this notice, but all comments received by the deadline will
be reviewed and given thoughtful consideration in the preparation of
the final funding priorities for the announcements. The names and
addresses of all those who submit comments will be added to the mailing
list for receiving copies of the final program announcements when they
are published.
DATES: In order to be considered, comments must be received no later
than April 14, 1997.
ADDRESSES: Comments should be sent to: James A. Harrell, Deputy
Commissioner, Administration on Children, Youth and Families,
Attention: CB/NCCAN, PO Box 1182, Washington, DC. 20013.
Electronic comments may be sent to: comments@acf.dhhs.gov>
If you comment electronically and wish to be added to the mailing
list, please include a street address.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
In addition to projects funded under priority areas selected as a
result of this announcement, NCCAN/CB may continue discretionary
funding for:
The National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect
Information;
The National Resource Center on Child Maltreatment;
Future phases of the Consortium for Longitudinal Studies
of Child Maltreatment;
The National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect; and
The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS)
technical assistance and technical support program.
NCCAN/CB will continue to pursue Interagency Agreements to develop
collaborative research with other Federal agencies to carry out an
interdisciplinary program of research that is designed to provide
information needed to better protect children from abuse or neglect and
to improve the well-being of abused or neglected children. NCCAN/CB
also will continue to participate in the development of a Federal
framework for child welfare research and an ACF strategic research
agenda on child abuse and neglect.
In addition, NCCAN/CB explicitly acknowledges on-going analytic
work with the National Incidence Study (NIS), the National Child Abuse
and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), and the Adoption and Foster Care
Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) data collection projects that
will inform several of the topics described below. Comments about
research topics and future activities should be addressed in light of
this ongoing work. The relevant topics include: recurrence (the numbers
and characteristics of children and families in both substantiated and
unsubstantiated reports that return to the system) and patterns of
recurrence (repeat substantiations, as well as unsubstantiated cases
that return as substantiated cases) which will be topics of analysis in
the NCANDS Detailed Case Data Component (DCDC) in the coming year; the
removal of children and abuse and neglect in foster care will be
examined by cross-walking data between NCANDS and AFCARS; mandated
reporter characteristics and child characteristics, as correlates, will
be explored through further analysis of both NCANDS and NIS data; and
court activity related to substantiated reporting will be explored
through additional analyses of NCANDS data.
Information on these and other prior and continuing projects
supported by NCCAN/CB as well as on other studies of child maltreatment
are available through the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and
Neglect Information, PO Box 1182, Washington, DC. 20013 (1-800-394-
3366).
The proposed research priority areas which follow have been
developed in consultation with several entities and from several
sources.
The 1996 reauthorization of CAPTA, section 104.
The National Research Council (NRC), Commission on
Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (CBASSE), Panel on
Research on Child Abuse and Neglect report, Understanding Child Abuse
and Neglect. This report was produced by CBASSE in response to a
request from ACYF to undertake a comprehensive review and synthesis of
research on child abuse and neglect and to recommend research needs and
priorities for the remainder of the decade. Over the last several
years, NCCAN/CB has responded to individual recommendations as funding
allowed. NCCAN/CB will continue to address the concerns raised in the
NRC report, as appropriate.
Reviews of current literature on child abuse and neglect.
Findings from recently completed studies.
Recommendations from the field.
Meetings with other Departmental units and professional
organizations.
NCCAN/CB will continue to examine the recommendations from these
various sources in light of other ongoing efforts and the applicability
of the recommendations to Federal research goals.
II. Proposed Child Abuse and Neglect Research Priorities for Fiscal
Years 1997-2001
A. Legislative Topics:
A number of research topics are suggested in the 1996
reauthorization of CAPTA, section 104. Comments are requested on the
feasibility of these topics for research, their pertinence to the
field, and their likelihood to promote innovative research that
increases our understanding of all aspects of child maltreatment.
The Research Frame: In general, all NCCAN/CB sponsored research
must fit within an overall frame of research on the nature and scope of
child abuse and neglect; the causes, prevention, assessment,
identification, treatment, cultural and socio-economic distinctions,
and consequences of child abuse and neglect; appropriate, effective and
culturally sensitive investigative, administrative, and judicial
procedures with respect to cases of child abuse; and the national
incidence of child abuse and neglect. These areas of inquiry underlie
all other questions and apply especially to inquiries that are
investigator-initiated, as described below in section C.
Mandated Reporting: Because entry into the child protective
services system may be affected by factors in addition to those
specific to an incident, research which explores these other factors
will elucidate the entry, service, re-entry, and flow processes
experienced by children and their families. Mandated reporting, for
example, affects the number of reports made, the gateways into child
protective services, and the allocation of resources in relation to the
number of reports accepted for investigation.
State child protective services (CPS) data show significant
differences in the reporting patterns and substantiation rates for
different reporting sources. For instance in an analysis of all reports
investigated by CPS in 10 States in 1993, it was found that 60 percent
of reports from legal and law enforcement professionals were
substantiated or indicated versus 45 percent of reports from educators.
(Child Abuse and Neglect Case Level Data 1993: Working Paper 1).
[[Page 6548]]
Questions about mandated reporting include those that explore the
extent to which the lack of adequate resources and the lack of adequate
training of individuals required by law to report suspected cases of
child abuse have contributed to the inability of a State to respond
effectively to serious cases of child abuse and neglect.
Unsubstantiated, unfounded, and false reports: Unsubstantiated,
unfounded, and falsely reported cases of child abuse and neglect put
considerable stress on the children and families who are the subjects
of the reports, but also put stresses on the child protective service
system itself. At this time, we have very little knowledge of the
relationship between reports, however false, unsubstantiated or
unfounded, and future maltreatment and system entry. Research questions
might inquire about: the extent to which the number of unsubstantiated,
unfounded, and falsely reported cases of child abuse or neglect
contribute to the inability of a child welfare system or child
protective services system to respond effectively to serious cases of
child abuse or neglect; the extent to which and the pathways by which
unsubstantiated reports return as more serious cases of child abuse or
neglect.
Reports in the context of family court proceedings: Some reports
occur in a context of divorce, custody or other family court
proceedings. NCCAN/CB is interested in the interaction between this
venue and the child protective services system. Research might be at
the individual, case, or system level. Questions might include: How
does family history with a child protective services system relate to
family court proceedings? Does entry into the child protective services
system via the family court gateway have a relationship to particular
case outcomes? What is the relationship, if any, between
unsubstantiated, unfounded, and false reports and families involved in
divorce, custody, or other family court actions?
Substitute care: NCCAN/CB is interested in the relationship between
child protective service systems and other child welfare programs as
well as a more detailed look at differentiated effects within
substitute care experiences. Research interests include: What is the
context, incidence, and prevalence of child physical, sexual, and
emotional abuse and physical and emotional neglect occurring in
substitute care? Because substitute care is itself a service, are
children in substitute care referred for and receiving additional
services related to the precipitating incident or additional incidents
of abuse and neglect? What is the efficacy of those additional services
in terms of safety, permanency, and child well-being outcomes and does
efficacy have a relationship to either the type of abuse precipitating
the placement, demographic characteristics of the child (e.g., age,
sex, disability), or characteristics of the substitute placement (e.g.,
relative care, licensing, certification).
Substantiated cases: Substantiated cases of child maltreatment
represent a particular sector of the child protective service
population. NCCAN/CB is interested in funding research that explores
system and sequelae questions with substantiated case samples, which
may answer such questions as: Can ``system history'' and ``client
characteristics'' be used to make predictions about future service
needs and system usage? What are the number and characteristics of
substantiated cases that result in a judicial finding of child abuse or
neglect or related criminal court convictions?
B. Other Topics
Child Safety and Child Fatality: NCCAN/CB is interested in research
that explores ways to understand the nature and scope of child abuse
and neglect that results in fatalities or permanent disabilities and
systemic responses to child fatalities. Questions might include those
which would explore reducing fatalities by asking questions about
efficacious placement of siblings or termination of parental rights
(TPR), as well as more prevention-oriented questions, including those
which explore the context of home and community environments related
especially to other forms of violence and the availability of a
continuum of comprehensive community preventive and treatment services.
Other research interests include: explorations of the relationship of
child fatality or serious injuries to placement and TPR decisions; and
``best practices'' and model development for safety assessment.
Recommendations are requested on the ability to sustain a research
focus on, and the usefulness of a focus on, variables related to
strengths-based programming and resiliency characteristics at the
family level especially as they are related to placement and TPR.
Co-occurrence: Suggestions for additional research questions as
well as comments are sought on research exploring the nature of the
pathways between the co-occurrence of child maltreatment and substance
abuse and/or domestic violence as those pathways relate to the
prevention of child maltreatment, assessment of co-occurrence,
treatment or intervention, and system responses to co-occurrence
(including demands on treatment, training, and resources). Preliminary
questions might include: What are the variety of system responses to
identifying, as a dynamic issue, and coordinating, as a structural
issue, services for co-occurrence? Do treatment models which begin with
one or the other symptom have more efficacious outcomes? Are there
identifiable ``best practices'' for treatment or service?
Definitions: In the interest of supporting on-going work and
encouraging new work in creating a consensus on definitions for
research purposes, NCCAN/CB seeks recommendations for field tests in
research settings and other applications of a set of working data
elements developed by the research committee of the Interagency Task
Force on Child Abuse and Neglect. The committee has been working with
researchers over the past three years to identify the data elements
that represent a core of consensus for research purposes about the
experiences of child abuse and neglect. The overall goal of the work of
the committee has been to present a common data collection set of
attributes that explicitly describe the nature of maltreatment in a
particular sample and allows samples to be compared, in terms of
maltreatment experiences, across studies.
Graduate Student Research Fellowships: With a continuing interest
in encouraging new investigators to select child maltreatment as an
area of specialty, NCCAN/CB seeks comments comparing the two models of
graduate student research support employed most recently. One model
awarded funds directly to eligible institutions for specific eligible
individual students. The second model awarded funds to eligible
institutions for a group consisting of a faculty member and eligible
students, or student. The goal of the Fellowships is to develop
mechanisms which support the renewal of the research field by
increasing the number of new researchers who elect to study child abuse
and neglect.
Outcomes: Building on the work of the Children's Bureau regarding
monitoring by outcomes and thinking ahead to the requirements for
outcome-based performance partnerships, NCCAN/CB seeks comments on the
socio-economic, cultural, and community variances which have bearing on
the use of ``safety,'' ``permanency,'' and ``child and family well-
being'' as outcomes, and tools for assessing the outcomes. Questions
[[Page 6549]]
might include: What is the relationship between the availability of
tools for assessing particular outcomes and a community's efforts to
achieve those outcomes? From a systemic perspective, how does the
definition of outcomes, or the operationalization of them, have impact
on the system's delivery of services and the success of particular
populations achieving the outcomes?
Over-represented populations and special populations (i.e., racial
and ethnic groups, children with disabilities): With continuing concern
about over-representation, research questions might include: What are
the characteristics of the system or the context that may contribute to
the over-representation of some populations in child protective service
caseloads? How do systems achieve a better understanding of the
dynamics of the communities that are over-represented? How are clients
assessed in order to generate knowledge about these populations that is
formed from appropriate cultural and sociological perspectives?
NCCAN/CB is interested in the safety and well-being of immigrant
children and their families, as a special population. Questions might
include explorations of service utilization, outreach, and cultural
context. More specific examples of research questions might include:
What are the relationships between child safety and well-being, child
protective services, the characteristics and needs of the children and
families themselves, and the communities in which they reside? How are
the needs of immigrant children and their families identified and
assessed? What are effective maltreatment prevention and treatment
program models for these populations?
Secondary Analysis: NCCAN/CB seeks comments regarding the interest
of the field for funding of secondary analyses of federally-financed
data collections and existing datasets. Opportunities here exist in the
analysis of, for example, Head Start data, data from the Adoption
Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), the 1994 National
Study of Protective, Preventive and Reunification Services Delivered to
Children and their Families, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data
System (NCANDS), and the National Incidence Study (NIS), regarding
specific field-generated or federally-generated research inquiries
related to child maltreatment. Comments should include (1) suggestions
for minimal award sizes and (2) suggestions for application strategies
that reduce the burden of applying for these small-amount grants.
Triage: Triage, here, is used to describe a differentiated response
service-entry or resource allocation model for handling child abuse and
neglect reports. Some triage models include assignment to service prior
to investigation for some classes of reports. Research interests
include questions about: The effects of a triage process on child
safety and child and family well-being, caseload sizes, and resource
allocation; and evaluations of the impact and efficacy of criteria,
tools, and protocols for case assignment, safety and risk assessment.
Does a triage approach result in changes in system responses, client
behavior (i.e., recidivism), changes in public perception of CPS, or
changes in clients' perceptions of CPS responsiveness to their needs or
to the perception of a punitive nature of CPS service?
Welfare Reform and System Changes: The impact of recent changes in
family support entitlements, block granting of welfare funds, work
requirements, child care needs, and other systemic changes is unknown.
NCCAN/CB is interested in research which explores the interactions of
these changes in welfare policy at the state and local level with child
safety in general and the protective needs of children in particular.
States have a range of options available to them as they implement new
welfare programs. Questions might include: How do these policy choices
affect child protective services agencies' ability to protect children?
What are the impacts on case loads, case characteristics, and system
entry and exit, for example, of family caps, time limits, and the
transition to work?
C. Field Initiated Research on Child Abuse and Neglect
The generation of new knowledge for understanding critical issues
in child abuse and neglect improves prevention, identification,
assessment, and treatment. Research areas to be addressed may be those
that will expand the current knowledge base, build on prior research,
contribute to practice enhancements, inform policy, improve science,
and provide insights into new approaches to the assessment, prevention,
intervention, and treatment of child maltreatment (i.e., physical
abuse, sexual abuse, emotional maltreatment, or neglect) on any of the
topics listed in (A) Legislative Topics, (B) Other Topics, above, or
any other child maltreatment topic.
In addition to the topics cited above, practitioners and
researchers are encouraged to propose other relevant subjects for
research topics.
(Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Program Number 93.670, Child
Abuse and Neglect Prevention and Treatment)
Dated: February 7, 1997.
James A. Harrell,
Deputy Commissioner, Administration on Children, Youth and Families.
[FR Doc. 97-3469 Filed 2-11-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-01-P
