The assessment of parenting in child protection cases

This article reports on the development of a procedure far standardized ass essment of parenting within statutory child protection agencies. The instru ments were trialed on 64 children and adolescents under the supervision of the New Zealand Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Services (CYPFS ) and results were compared with normative samples from Canada and Australi a Results revealed that CYPFS cases displayed poorer functioning and receiv ed fewer positive parenting practices than the normative populations. Eight of the CYPFS children were also subjected to severe or very severe abuse i n the 1-month study period General population norms were then used to const ruct a taxonomy of CYPFS cases according to the dimensions of nurturance an d abusiveness. Using this schema it was found that 29 of the CYPFS cases co uld be classified as "nonabusive + nurturant" and had therefore reached cri teria for case closure. Limitations of the research and implications for pr actice are discussed.