Young children are particularly susceptible to the deleterious consequences of maltreatment to their survival and well-being. Previous research suggests that there are age-specific differences with respect to how the child welfare system responds to children and their families. Caregivers of young children are among the most likely to receive child welfare services following an investigation; however, little is known about the child, family, household and case factors associated with service provision decisions. Data from the sixth cycle of the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (OIS) for 2018 was analyzed. Of the 158,476 estimated maltreatment-related investigations of children 0–17 years of age, approximately 5% involved infants (less than one year) and approximately 14% involved toddlers (1–3 years). The most influential factors associated with the decision to transfer a case to ongoing services were explored for both infants and toddlers through a multivariate tree-classification technique, Chi square automatic interaction detection (CHAID). For both models, worker assessment and determination that the child was at significant risk of future maltreatment and caregiver mental health were influential and significant predictors. Differences did emerge between groups. For infant investigations, caregiver risk factors interacted with the child’s household running out of money for basic necessities; whereas, for toddler investigations, child characteristics interacted with caregiver risk factors. A better understanding of the child welfare system’s response to young children is crucial to the development of innovative practice and policy strategies within the field of child welfare and across allied child- and family-service systems.

幼儿特别容易受到虐待对其生存和福祉的有害影响。先前的研究表明，在儿童福利系统对儿童及其家庭的反应方面，存在特定年龄的差异。调查后，幼儿的看护者最有可能获得儿童福利服务；但是，对于与服务提供决策相关的儿童，家庭，家庭和案例因素知之甚少。分析了安大略省报告的虐待儿童和忽视儿童事件研究（OIS）的第六周期的2018年数据。在估计的158,476例0-17岁儿童的虐待相关调查中，约5％涉及婴儿（少于1岁），约14％涉及幼儿（1-3岁）。通过多变量树分类技术，即卡方自动交互检测（CHAID），探索了与将案例转移到正在进行的服务的决定相关的最有影响力的因素。对于这两种模型，工作人员的评估和确定孩子将来受到虐待的风险都很大，并且照顾者的心理健康是影响力和重要的预测因素。群体之间确实出现了差异。在婴儿调查中，照顾者的危险因素与孩子的家庭互动，而他们的家庭因基本必需品而用光了钱。而对于幼儿研究，孩子的性格特征与照顾者的危险因素相互影响。