ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the reader to child maltreatment risk assessment. Child abuse and neglect are all too common occurrences, and despite the advances in child protection laws, child maltreatment continues to either be overlooked or mistakenly diagnosed. This chapter explores child protection concepts in child welfare work as well as the purposes, benefits, and goals of child and family maltreatment risk assessment. Challenges to child maltreatment risk evaluation are explored, including the base rate fallacy, the pitfalls of false positives and false negatives, and cultural factors. Decision making paradigms are presented, along with a rationale for assessing families through a multicultural lens. Decision making paradigms include subjective, consensus-based decisions and objective, actuarial-based decisions. Multicultural decision making models are needed to address ethnically, racially, culturally diverse clients who might also be immigrants. This chapter is useful for counselors, social workers, and forensic psychologists.
