Child Abuse and Neglect: Improving Consistency in Decision Making

A Comparative Study of the Use and Effectiveness of Different Risk Assessment Models in CPS Decision Making Processes is a three year study funded by the Office of Child Abuse and Neglect (Grant 90-CA-1550). The objectives of this study are to determine the relative reliability and validity of three approaches to risk assessment currently used in CPS. The following report describes the issues of reliability of the different approaches.

A Comparative Study of the Use and Effectiveness of Different Risk Assessment Models in CPS Decision Making Processes is a three year study funded by the Office of Child Abuse and Neglect (Grant 90-CA-1550). The objectives of this study are to determine the relative reliability and validity of three approaches to risk assessment currently used in CPS. The following report describes the issues of reliability of the different approaches. These issues include: the strengths and weaknesses of methods used to measure reliability, the methodology selected to examine and estimate inter-rater reliability, and the results of the analyses.