Methodological and Validity Issues Involved in the Collection of Sensitive Information From Children in Foster Care

The Illinois Child Well-Being Study (ICWBS) established a red-flag reporting system (RFRS) embedded in the Audio Computer Assisted Self Interview (ACASI) portion of its child survey to flag reports of violence toward the child, suicidality, neglect, and/or sexual exploitation. When those RFRS questions were positively answered, the reported incident was relayed to the child's caseworker and investigated. This study describes the RFRS, the analysis of the children's reports, and a content analysis of the caseworkers' investigation. In this study, 166 children were interviewed and 28 children reported 36 RFRS incidents. On investigation, only 6 RFRS incidents were verified; most RFRS incidents were reported in error. The results of this study may help researchers using similar RFRS protocols.