The purpose of this study was to examine the range of policy approaches used by child welfare systems in the United States to guide workers in classifying and substantiating child exposure to domestic violence (CEDV) as an actionable form of maltreatment. To that end, we conducted a qualitative document analysis of child protective services (CPS) policy manuals from all state-administered child welfare systems in the U.S. (N = 41). Our findings indicate that a majority of state-administered systems (71%) have adopted policy requiring workers to demonstrate that children have endured harm or the threat of harm before substantiating CEDV-related maltreatment. Many state systems (51%) also include policy directives that require workers to identify a primary aggressor during CPS investigations involving CEDV, while far fewer (37%) provide language that potentially exonerates survivors of domestic violence from being held accountable for failure to protect on the basis of their own victimization. Based on our findings and identification of policy exemplars, we offer a recommended set of quality policy indicators for states to consider in the formulation of their policy guidelines for substantiating children’s exposure to domestic violence that promotes the safety and wellbeing of both children and adult survivors of domestic violence.

本研究的目的是检查美国儿童福利系统使用的一系列政策方法，以指导工作人员将儿童遭受家庭暴力 (CEDV) 归类和证实为一种可采取行动的虐待形式。为此，我们对美国所有国家管理的儿童福利系统的儿童保护服务 (CPS) 政策手册进行了定性文件分析 ( N= 41）。我们的调查结果表明，大多数国家管理的系统 (71%) 已采取政策，要求工人在证实与 CEDV 相关的虐待之前证明儿童已经遭受了伤害或受到伤害的威胁。许多州系统 (51%) 还包括政策指令，要求工人在涉及 CEDV 的 CPS 调查期间确定主要侵犯者，而很少 (37%) 提供的语言可能免除家庭暴力幸存者因未能保护自己受害的基础。根据我们的发现和政策范例的确定，