Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS–4)

• 52 agencies provided their own SPS data through direct interviews, and• for 10 agencies SPS screening data were obtained through two interviews atdifferent levels—through a direct interview with the local intake/screeningsupervisor and through an interview with their state hotline (this entailed 4state hotline interviews)NIS–4 analysts designed a detailed coding system to identify the specific factors thataffected decisions about whether to screen a referral in for investigation and whether to assign areferral to the agency’s alternative response track. The SPS data analysis used the same weightsthat were developed for the SPM and described in that section. These weights allow the SPSagency-level data to provide estimates that characterize the screening policies in all local CPSagencies in the United States.Phase II. In Phase II of the SPS, coders applied each agency’s screening criteria tothe NIS–4 countable uninvestigated maltreated children in the agency’s jurisdiction to identifythose who (if they had been reported to their local CPS) would have been screened in for aninvestigation. If the agency consistently applied the screening criteria described in the SPSinterview, then one can assume that these children were never reported to CPS. CPS may or maynot have received a report on the remaining children.SPS coders had been NIS–4 evaluative coders, so they were thoroughly familiar withthe data forms and the complexity of information in the records. For the SPS, they revisited dataforms from the NIS–4 main study on all children who were countable by NIS standards but notinvestigated by CPS. From November 2007 to February 2008, they reviewed all specific formsof maltreatment described on these data forms, whether or not they were countable in the NIS–4classifications. This was done to be certain to identify any reason the agency would havescreened the child in for investigation, regardless of whether this agreed with the reason the childwas considered countable in the NIS. Coders were assisted in this task by a computerizedsystem where they could view complete images of the data forms (see CAEDS in the EvaluativeCoding section) and could directly enter their decisions about whether the agency’s policieswould have screened the case in for investigation of the alleged maltreatment.Cases were coded in relation to all screening policies that could apply to them. Thatmeant that records on 721 uninvestigated countable children were coded at both the local agencyand state hotline levels. Including these, coders assessed 3,962 uninvestigated child records,which entailed 6,683 separate assessments of how agency policy would have responded to thespecific forms of maltreatment described in these records. For reliability purposes, a secondA-34