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Background: North American studies find that geographic indicators of disadvantage, such as concentrated poverty, significantly increase the risk of child protection involvement. Despite having one of the most extensive family support systems and progressive income redistribution policies in North America, the Canadian province of Québec still faces geographic variations in socioeconomic conditions that remain a major risk factor for child protection involvement., Objective: This study asks how child protection involvement is distributed across socioeconomically distinct geographic areas of the province. Drawing from prior literature, we hypothesize that the highest level of child protection involvement across childhood (age 0-17) is found in the lowest socioeconomic areas., Participants & Setting: This is a population-based prevalence study using administrative child protection data spanning the years 2000 to 2017 across Québec., Methods: We constructed cumulative risk life tables of first instances of child protection events (report confirmation, compromised security or development, and out-of-home placement). Prevalence rates were mapped onto 10,650 Census dissemination areas divided into three tiers according to a validated socioeconomic status (SES) index., Results: The highest childhood prevalence of confirmed child protection reports, finding of compromised security or development, and out-of-home placement was found in the lowest SES areas. Rates in low SES areas can be over twice the rates in high SES areas., Conclusions: Area-level socioeconomic vulnerability remains a robust predictor of child protection involvement even in a socially progressive context. Our findings underscore that without targeted pediatric and family services, as well as poverty-alleviation programs for high-need families in high-need areas, even well-intentioned systems may fall short of reaching the families most in need., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objective: The objective this study was to investigate the relative contributions of gender, common mental health symptoms, and experiences of interpersonal violence to the presence of sleep disturbances in Youth in Care under Child Welfare Society admitted to residential facilities., Methods: A sample of 315 teenagers (14-18 years old) completed a self-reported questionnaire upon admission, followed by a medical consultation with a nurse and a physician. Information regarding experiences of interpersonal violence, mental health symptoms, and sleep disturbances was collected using a standardized questionnaire., Results: Anxiety, ADHD symptoms, and sexual abuse were associated with sleep disturbances, F(10, 264) = 5.95, p < 0.001. Results from hierarchical regression analyses revealed that experiences of interpersonal violence, more specifically sexual abuse, were associated with sleep disturbances over and beyond gender and the presence of mental health symptoms., Conclusions: These results highlight practical implications for health professionals in terms of assessment and intervention for vulnerable youth exposed to interpersonal violence. Implications for research and practice are discussed., (Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

There is scarce research on children and youth with sexual behavior problems (SBP) and their developmental antecedents and the research that does exist is mostly retrospective and correlational. While prior research focused on the central role of sexual victimization, recent research suggests that young persons with SBP are exposed to a series of adversities not limited to child sexual victimization and require multifaceted assessment and intervention using a developmental life course perspective. The current study includes an examination of the complete longitudinal sequence of child protective service (CPS) investigations involving young persons with SBP. The study is based on a sample of 957 youth referred to the CPS in Quebec, Canada. The data include their longitudinal sequence of referrals from birth to age 18. Semi-parametric analyses identified four trajectories of referrals with significant differences in terms of onset, frequency, types of life adversity, and polyvictimization. The trajectories suggest that a range of developmental profiles characterize young persons with SBP, with SBP often occurring after CPS contacts for compromising issues other than sexual victimization, especially parental neglect and serious behavior problems. Of importance, polyvictimization was relatively common for this group throughout childhood and adolescence, which highlights the multiintervention needs of this population., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

A large majority of children who are placed outside the family home experience temporary placements (between 1 to 60 days) at some point in time. Yet, information on the use of temporary placements remains fragmentary, with only occasional indirect references. This scant information does, however, suggests a particular link between physical abuse and temporary placements. The objective of the present study is to describe the context in which temporary placements are used by children's services in Quebec (Canada) while analyzing the associative link between temporary placements and physical abuse as the reason for the placement. Our study is based on a population cohort of 10,181 children placed in Quebec who have been followed for four years. Propensity-weighted multinomial regression analysis was used to assess the relative importance of the various individual pre-placement factors that may be associated with physical abuse. Results show that children investigated for physical abuse alone are 6.335 times more likely to have temporary placement trajectories compared to children investigated for other reasons. Cases that involved physical abuse combined with other reasons, were between 33.4% and 41% more likely to involve trajectories with temporary placements, than cases that were investigated for reasons other than physical abuse. Sex, age, and history of services have been used as covariates. In conclusion, the use of temporary placements is discussed with regards to the mandate of child-protection services and of certain etiological profiles of physical abuse., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Relying on official data provided by the Québec City Youth Center, Canada, we explore the nature and intensity of officially known criminality for all youth (N = 5399) found guilty under the provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act between 2003 and 2012 and assess the relationship between criminality and previous episodes of child maltreatment. This article proposes to further verify the general hypothesis stating that there are empirical links between these two phenomena. The results suggest that those youth victims of specific types of child maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse) seem to be found guilty of criminal acts that are significantly in line with these earlier episodes of maltreatment. These results might help to prevent potential occurrences of such a phenomenon and also contributes to the ongoing development of psychological and criminological theories assessing why and to what extent a child victim of maltreatment might later commit criminal offenses., (Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Objective: The Québec Incidence Study on situations investigated by child protective services (QIS) has been conducted in 5-year cycles since 1998 in collaboration with all 16 Québec child protection agencies. It provides reliable estimates of the incidence and characteristics of investigated children. The aim of this paper is to discuss major findings from the QIS-2008 and to compare them with the findings from QIS-1998., Methods: Two representative samples of children who were investigated by child protection services during the same three-month time frame in 1998 (N = 4,771) and in 2008 (N = 3,079) were constituted. Caseworkers were asked to complete the QIS data collection form for each sampled child. Annual estimates of the number of children investigated with different characteristics were computed and compared across both cycles. Statistical tests were performed to identify significant differences., Results: While the rate of children investigated increased between 1998 and 2008, the rate of substantiated cases remained stable at 12 and 11 per 1,000 children in the population respectively. Furthermore, substantiated cases in 2008 were less severe than in 1998 along several dimensions, such as co-occurrence, emotional harm and duration., Conclusion: Combined with the stability in the rate of substantiated cases, the decline in the severity of the situations seems encouraging but questions the necessity of a CPS intervention for some of these families. These findings are consistent with the ones reported in other countries, but Québec rates are below the rates estimated for Canada, where substantiated maltreatment almost doubled during the same time frame. Aspects of social policies in Québec may play a role in this situation and need to be examined in future research.