ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on identifying the characteristics of children referred for abuse and neglect. It raises issues regarding definitions of maltreatment and public awareness of abuse and neglect. Child maltreatment reporting laws require that select professionals report a suspected child abuse or neglect incident to the proper investigative agency. California, like most other states, has no statewide on-line management information system for child abuse and neglect reports. The child abuse and neglect referral process involves many parties and quite a few decisions. The first step in a referral process is for someone to refer a child suspected of being abused or neglected to the proper authorities. When drug-related and non drugrelated referrals were aggregated, the findings revealed that the most common referral reason was physical abuse and that the least frequent reason was exploitation. Referrals from social services include those from the child welfare system, residential treatment, welfare, licensing, and transfers from other counties' social service agencies.
