An examination of re-referrals and substantiations among families referred to home-based, differential response services and a comparison group: Does successful completion matter?

Although some studies have examined child maltreatment recidivism following participation in a home -based, differential response program (HBDR) after a child protective services (CPS) investigation, they often do not include adequate comparison groups, are limited to one outcome, and do not examine outcomes by successful completion. Using administrative data from a Southwestern state including children whose families received HBDR services following an allegation of maltreatment, this study compared families who received HBDR services (n = 4,079) to families that were investigated but did not receive HBDR services (n = 4,221) using two indicators of CPS recidivism (i.e., re -reports and substantiation) over a period of 41/2to 7 years. Bivariate analyses indicated that families who received HBDR services had an average substantiation rate of 7.9% using a revised federal methodology, which was slightly higher than the comparison group; the substantiation rate for HBDR families during the entire study period was 14.5%. However, HBDR families had lower rereport rates at one year and during the overall study period relative to the comparison group. In contrast, the rereport and substantiation rate for HBDR families who successfully completed services was lower than the comparison group. Multivariable analyses indicated that successful completion of HBDR was associated with lower re -referral rates and substantiation rates after adjusting for demographic and case characteristics. These findings suggest that prevention programs offering HBDR could make a short-term and long-term impact on the re -referral and substantiation rates among high -risk families after a child abuse investigation and emphasize the importance of ensuring that participants successfully complete HBDR as this was associated with reductions in recidivism.