Protective role of informal social support and early childhood programs in reducing likelihood of subsequent reports of child maltreatment.

BACKGROUND: While past research has suggested the importance of informal social support and early childhood programs for the well-being of child welfare supervised families and children, little is known about whether or not these mechanisms function as protective factors for child welfare involved families and mediate the likelihood of repeat child maltreatment.

OBJECTIVE: The study examined the role of informal social support and early childhood program participation in mediating the effects of initial report of child neglect on subsequent child maltreatment reports.

PARTICIPANTS & SETTING: The study sample of children ages 0-6 (N = 1963) was drawn from the NSCAW-II dataset, a nationally representative longitudinal dataset of 5872 child welfare supervised children and their families.

METHODS: Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine the direct and indirect pathways: from initial report of neglect to all subsequent child maltreatment reports and from initial report of neglect to all subsequent child maltreatment reports through mediating variables such as informal social support and early childhood programs.

RESULTS: Results showed that informal social support plays an important role in reducing the likelihood of subsequent reports (b = -0.00, p = 0.005). One unit increase in informal social support reduced the odds of a child maltreatment re-report by 0.3 % (odds ratio for informal social support OR = 0.997).

IMPLICATIONS: It is important that child welfare supervised families are supported in enhancing their informal networks with their family members and friends and expanding non-familial informal networks in the community.