The Characteristics of Abused Women in the Caseload of a Child Protection Service

This study identifies case characteristics of abused women in a child protection services caseload. The sample was drawn from a large child protection agency in southwestern Ontario consisting of 853 children chosen at random from among all children who had a new referral over a 12-month period. Files of the children were reviewed to derive study data. Results indicate that abused women are significantly more likely to have mental and physical health problem characteristics such as substance abuse, mental illness, impaired mental/emotional/intellectual capacity to care for the child, and a chronic medical condition compared to non-abused women. Abused women are more likely to rely on social assistance, be unemployed, less likely to cope effectively with family stress, and less likely to have the availability of reliable and useful social supports in place compared to non-abused women. Abused women are more likely to have been abused and neglected as children and more likely to have been involved with child protection services as children than are women who were not abused. Children of abused women are more likely to be currently in the care of child protection authorities than are the children of women who are not abused. Surprisingly, violence perpetrated by the mother towards their child and the severity of child abuse/neglect inflicted by the mother does not differ for children of abused and non-abused women. These findings are discussed in relation to their implications for understanding woman abuse in the context of child protection services.