Involvement of TANF Applicants with Child Protective Services

Mark Courtney
School of Social Service Administration
University of Chicago
969 East 60th Street
Chicago IL 60637
773-702-1164
markc@uchicago.edu
 
Irving Piliavin
School of Social Work
University of Wisconsin
1350 University Avenue
Madison WI 53706
608-262-6379
piliavin@ssc.wisc.edu
One of the "sleeper" issues surrounding welfare reform has been the extent to which changes in public assistance programs may affect the demand for child welfare services including child protective services (CPS). The fundamental change of public assistance from primarily an income transfer program under Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to a set of services intended to help parents function effectively in the work force calls for an examination of how this new mission is related to the mission of child welfare services.  Are the challenges facing TANF-involved parents' ability to hold down a family-supporting job similar to those facing parents who become involved with child welfare programs?  To what extent do the two caseloads overlap over time?  Should TANF managers and child welfare services managers coordinate their efforts, and if so, how?
 
Our paper presents findings from an exploratory study of TANF applicants in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.  The study involves in-person interviews with parent TANF applicants and linking the resulting survey data with administrative data on government program participation.  We examine the level of involvement of 1,178 families that applied for TANF in 1999 with the child welfare system both prior and subsequent to their application for TANF assistance and inclusion in our study.  We also present multivariate models of the hazard of CPS involvement of our sample subsequent to their application for TANF.  We find a high level of overlap between TANF and child welfare populations.  For example, nearly two-fifths of the families have been investigated at some time for child maltreatment. We also find a set of correlates of CPS involvement after application for TANF (e.g., family size, work history, parental stress, prior CPS involvement) that are robust to a variety of model specifications and suggest the need to coordinate TANF and child welfare programs.