Uncovering physical harm in cases of reported child maltreatment

Child protection statutes are designed to protect children from harm, yet there is surprisingly limited information available about injuries or other forms of harm documented in cases of reported child maltreatment. To examine trends in the rate of substantiated child maltreatment investigations in Canada involving physical harm over a twenty-year period. and Setting: The Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect is a cyclical study which uses a file review methodology to collect information about child maltreatment-related investigations from child protection workers across Canada. We conducted secondary analysis of data from three cycles of the Cis (1998, 2008, and 2019). Because information on physical harm was not available from Quebec during the 2019 cycle, we limited the analyses to the rest of Canada, excluding Quebec. The rate of child maltreatment-related investigations has more than doubled between 1998 and 2019 from 24.53 to 56.03 investigations per 1000 children. Rates of substantiated maltreatment have also increased (from 10.21 to 17.56 investigations per 1000 children), while the rate of substantiated investigations involving documented physical harm has decreased (from 1.81 to 0.79 investigations per 1000 children). Child protection agencies in Canada are identifying less physical harm than they were two decades ago although the overall rate of investigations has increased in the same time period. As protecting children from harm is a paramount purpose of child protection statutes across the country, further information is needed to understand whether the duty to protect is being met.