Who is involved in child protection investigations? The relationship between gender, ethnicity/migration background, and contacts between parents and caseworkers during investigations and assessments

Involvement of parents in child protection investigations and assessments is important and associated with the quality of care in the system. However, it seems that not all parents are involved to the same extent. Mothers seem to be more involved compared to fathers and parents of minoritized ethnic groups or with migration backgrounds seem less likely to be involved compared to parents of advantaged ethnic populations. In this study, we operationalized involvement by analyzing the number of contacts parents had with child protection agencies. We investigated whether gender and ethnicity or migration background impacted contacts in child protection investigations and assessments in England, the Netherlands, and Germany. We conducted a quantitative case file study and analyzed case files representing investigations and assessments regarding suspected child abuse and neglect (1,954 parents involved in 1,207 child protection cases). Using linear multilevel regression analyses, we investigated whether parent gender and family ethnicity/migration background were associated with the number of contacts that parents had. In all countries, we found that fathers had fewer contacts compared to mothers. In the Netherlands only, we found that parents in migrant families had fewer contacts. We discuss strategies to enhance the involvement of fathers and parents with migration backgrounds.