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Allegation Report Differences

All reports on allegations treat each referral, or set of linked referrals, as though it had a single allegation, the one with the most certain disposition and, if there is more than one allegation with the same disposition, the most serious allegation for that disposition. For example, if there is a substantiated allegation for general neglect and an inconclusive allegation for physical abuse, the substantiated allegation for general neglect is the one retained. If both the allegations for physical abuse and general neglect are substantiated, the substantiated allegation for physical abuse is retained.

All of the reports on allegations are child based, counting each child only once in each time period. However, of necessity when there is more than one referral in the time period, the different reports select the referral to use in the denominator in different ways.

The Child Maltreatment Allegations/Child Count and Child Maltreatment Allegation, Investigation, and Substantiation Rates reports select the most certain disposition and serious allegation from the allegations in the 12-month reporting period. Thus, if a referral with a substantiated allegation of general neglect was followed by a referral with a substantiated allegation of physical abuse, these reports would count the substantiated allegation of physical abuse.

The Federal Measure 4-S2 (Recurrence of maltreatment) only considers substantiated allegations. For the denominator, the first substantiated allegation within the 12 month period is selected, irrespective of its severity. The numerator, if any, would be the next substantiated referral received in the follow-up period, irrespective of its severity (allegations occurring within 14 days of the initial report are excluded). In the above example, this means that the substantiated allegation for general neglect is the denominator allegation. If the substantiated allegation for physical abuse occurred in the follow-up period, then it would be a part of the numerator. Thus, more serious allegations are less likely to form the denominator for 4-S2 than they are to be counted in the Child Maltreatment Allegations/Child Count report.

The Recurrence of Allegations report considers allegations of all disposition types, not only allegations that were substantiated. Thus it also includes allegations that were inconclusive, unfounded, assessment only, and not yet determined. The denominator is the allegation of the first referral in the 12-month time period. Thus, if there is a referral with an inconclusive allegation of general neglect followed by a referral with a substantiated allegation for severe neglect, the denominator includes the inconclusive allegation of general neglect. This means that the denominator will include fewer substantiated allegations than Federal Measure 4-S2 or the Child Maltreatment Allegations/Child Count measures.

The Recurrence of Allegations after Exit report differs from the other allegations reports in that the denominator is not allegations of abuse and neglect, but exits from foster care. The following table summarizes these differences:

	Child Maltreatment Allegations/Child Count (and Rates Reports)	4-S2 (Recurrence of maltreatment)	Recurrence of Allegations	Recurrence of Allegations after Exit
Base Time Period	12 months	12 months	12 months	12 months
Base Universe	Most severe substantiated allegation in base period	First substantiated allegation in base period	First allegation in base period	First exit from foster care in base period.
Risk Allegations	Included	Not included	Not included	Optional for numerator
Numerator	n/a	First substantiated allegation in observation period	The most certain subsequent disposition with most serious allegation in observation period	The most certain subsequent disposition with most serious allegation in observation period

The user can always opt to further limit the selection of denominator records. However, because the denominator only contains one record per child, if in Recurrence of Allegations, for example, the user chooses to only consider allegations of general neglect, the user will be selecting those children for whom the first substantiated allegation was of general neglect. Therefore, the selected allegations are essentially a sample of the allegations that occurred during the base period.