The Child Abuse Risk Evaluation Dutch Version (CARE-NL): A retrospective validation study

Corine de Ruiter*, Martin Hildebrand, Steven van der Hoorn

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The Child Abuse Risk Evaluation – Dutch version (CARE-NL) is a structured professional guideline for assessing the risk of all types of child abuse. The CARE-NL comprises 18 risk factors: eight Parental characteristics, three Parent-Child interaction factors, five Family factors, one Child vulnerability factor, and an extra factor for child sexual abuse risk. We examined interrater reliability and predictive accuracy of the instrument in a retrospective study at Advice and Reporting Centers on Child Abuse (ARCCA) in The Netherlands. The ARCCA files contained limited information on Parental risk factors, while parental characteristics, such as mental disorder and substance abuse, are the most important risk factors for
repeated) child abuse. On the other hand, the majority of the files included ample information on child and family characteristics. The CARE-NL could be reliably coded by trained raters and the predictive accuracy for out-of-home placement (AUC = .73) and placement of the child under court supervision (AUC = .78), at two years follow-up, was adequate. Use of the CARE-NL ensures that the
assessment of the risk of child abuse focuses on the most important, empirically
based risk factors in a structured and coherent way.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)37-57
Number of pages21
JournalJournal of Child Custody
Volume17
Issue number1
Early online date18 Dec 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Keywords

  • CARE-NL
  • COOCCURRENCE
  • MALTREATMENT
  • PREVALENCE
  • PROTECTIVE FACTORS
  • RECURRENCE
  • RELIABILITY
  • SERVICES
  • SEXUAL-ABUSE
  • SPOUSE
  • VIOLENCE
  • child abuse
  • child neglect
  • prevention
  • risk assessment
  • risk factors
  • MISSING DATA
  • POTENTIAL MEDIATOR
  • STRESS SYMPTOMS
  • EXPOSURE
  • SCHOOL SUSPENSION
  • INTERPARENTAL CONFLICT
  • SUBSTANCE USE
  • MENTAL-HEALTH
  • WASHINGTON-STATE
  • INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE

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