State Policy Levers for Reducing Early Childhood Maltreatment: The Importance of Family Planning and Economic Support Policies.

Children experiencing maltreatment in the first 3 years of life are at risk for several developmental challenges throughout the lifespan. Researchers and practitioners have emphasized understanding how institutional supports implemented through state governments may support infants and toddlers' development, but less attention has been paid to the potential effects of state policies on maltreatment specifically. We tested whether state-level policies providing economic and family planning support implemented between 2005-2019 were associated with rates of reported and substantiated abuse and neglect among children under three.

State Child Welfare Policies and the Measurement of Child Maltreatment in the United States.

State-level child welfare policies and practices affect what can be referred, investigated, and substantiated as child maltreatment, and these institutional factors vary across states and over time. Researchers typically have not accounted for these factors in analyses, confounding institutional features with the underlying construct they seek to study. The present study addresses this limitation by demonstrating how changes in specific state child welfare policies and practices influence reported and substantiated maltreatment in the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS).

Examining the Impact of COVID-19 on Parental Stress: A Study of Foster Parents.

Purpose: The overarching purpose of this exploratory study was to understand how foster parents' parenting-related stress levels have changed over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the role of sociodemographic characteristics in exacerbating risk for increased stress.

Method: Participants were electronically surveyed about their pre- and post-pandemic parenting-related stress, using an adapted version of the parenting stress scale.

Results: Nine-hundred and ninety foster parents (N = 990) participated in the study.

Childhood maltreatment exposure and physical functional limitations in late adulthood: examining subjective sleep quality in midlife as a mediator.

The present study had three major aims: 1) To identify sub-groups of adults with differing combinations of childhood maltreatment exposures, 2) to understand the association of childhood maltreatment sub-group membership with subjective sleep quality in midlife, and 3) to assess poor sleep quality in midlife as a mechanism between childhood maltreatment sub-group membership and physical functional limitations in late adulthood. Data come from the Biomarker project of the Midlife Development in the United States study ( = 1251). The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (Buysse et al.

The benefits of early care and education for child welfare-involved children: Perspectives from the field.

Increasing access to early care and education (ECE) for children in the child welfare system (CWS) remains a critical issue in the United States, as the numbers of young children entering this system steadily increases. Mounting evidence suggests that participation in at least some types of ECE can mitigate the need for child welfare supervision. Moreover, ECE participation has been linked to positive developmental and school readiness outcomes, lower rates of foster placement, and greater placement stability for children in the CWS.

Differential impacts of participation in organized activities and maltreatment types on adolescent academic and socioemotional development.

Participation in organized activities has been largely regarded as beneficial for academic and socioemotional development for adolescents, but the impacts of various types of organized activities for adolescents at risk for maltreatment have been rarely tested. In this study, we investigated the differential impacts of five types of maltreatment exposure (physical maltreatment, sexual maltreatment, neglect, other type, and multiple types) on the associations between four types of organized activities (mentored groups, art and music clubs, sport clubs, and academic clubs) and academic and socioemotional development (school engagement, delinquency, depressive symptoms, and trauma symptoms) of adolescents who were investigated by Child Protective Services (CPS) for maltreatment exposure. Data came from a national, longitudinal sample of 790 adolescents in contact with CPS in the U.