Background

The longitudinal trajectory of Indigenous children within child protection (CP) services, including their recurrent involvement, has yet to be documented.

Objectives

1) To document whether First Nations children were at increased risk of a first recurrence of post-investigation CP services compared to children from the majority group. 2) To identify the characteristics associated with recurrence for First Nations children, and to compare these results to those for children from the majority group.

Method

Anonymized CP administrative data (2002–2014; n = 1150) of a region in the province of Quebec were used to conduct Cox proportional hazards modeling, in partnership with an advisory committee.

Results

The risk of recurrence of First Nations children did not significantly differ from the risk for children from the majority group (HR: 0.980, n.s.) while controlling for covariates. Among First Nations children (n = 459), being under two at the case closure (HR: 2.718, p < .05), having received short-term intervention (HR: 5.027, p < .001) and coming from a family already known to the CP agency (HR: 2.023, p < .001) were associated with an increased risk of recurrence.

Conclusions

The findings highlight the importance of studying First Nations children's trajectories within CP services as a group deserving full attention and for First Nations to be able to design or demand appropriate services responding to their population's needs. A family-based research perspective is recommended to understand better the full family history leading to and in relation to CP services, which could provide more sound practice recommendations.

中文翻译：

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为魁北克省原住民儿童提供的经常性儿童保护调查后服务

背景

土著儿童在儿童保护 (CP) 服务中的纵向轨迹，包括他们的经常参与，尚待记录。

目标

1) 记录与大多数群体的儿童相比，原住民儿童是否更容易再次接受调查后 CP 服务。2) 确定与原住民儿童复发相关的特征，并将这些结果与大多数儿童的结果进行比较。

方法

与咨询委员会合作，使用魁北克省某个地区的匿名 CP 行政数据（2002-2014 年；n = 1150）进行 Cox 比例风险建模。

结果

在控制协变量时，原住民儿童的复发风险与多数群体儿童的风险（HR：0.980，ns）没有显着差异。在原住民儿童 (n = 459) 中，个案结案时未满两岁 (HR: 2.718, p < .05)，接受过短期干预 (HR: 5.027, p < .001) 并且来自一个家庭CP 机构已知的 (HR: 2.023, p < .001) 与复发风险增加有关。

结论

调查结果强调了在 CP 服务中研究原住民儿童轨迹的重要性，认为这是一个值得充分关注的群体，并且对于原住民能够设计或要求适当的服务来响应其人口的需求。建议采用基于家庭的研究视角，以更好地了解导致 CP 服务和与之相关的完整家族史，这可以提供更合理的实践建议。