A Review of Risk Factors Assessed in Child Protective Services

Evaluating the likelihood of future maltreatment is a critical component of decision making in the child protective service process. A relatively recent phenomenon is the use of formal risk-assessment instruments for the collection of specific, generally quantifiable, data to help in this assessment. We compare the risk variables assessed in eight instruments currently employed and include results from a literature review to determine the empirical basis for use of the identified risk factors. The instruments differ in the variables included, and there is little empirical support for most of the included variables. However, subsets of variables can be identified that are common to most instruments and that have empirical support.