Telephone survey research with primarily Latino and White parents, youth, and caregivers in Child Protective Services (CPS) reveals self-reported health/mental health challenges and that substance abuse treatment would have helped the most in preventing entry to CPS

Santa Cruz County California is one of the first counties to directly survey the families involved in Child Protective Services (CPS). In 2007, Applied Survey Research (ASR) designed and successfully completed telephone surveys with 114 parents who had a CPS case opened in 2005/2006, 124 youth ages 12-18 who had ever been in CPS, and 131 caregivers who cared for children in 2005/2006 (for a response rate from 35% to 39%). The county has a high percentage of immigrants from Mexico so most respondents were Latino followed by White. Questions were posed to include the respondent and one child in the household and covered topics from health to needs, services received and economic status.

Health/mental health findings showed: Over one-third of parents and caregivers characterized their child's health as fair or poor. One half of parents felt that their child had an ongoing health problem which tended to be mental health or behavior related. Similarly, 62% of caregivers said the child had emotional health problems when the child was placed in their home. The majority of youth said they felt angry a lot (62%), and sad a lot (53%), nearly half said they got into fights over the last year (47%) and 24% said they had difficulties talking or socializing with people.

Parents were asked what “one” thing would have helped them the most in preventing entry into CPS, and the largest percentage of parents said substance abuse treatment and avoiding drugs/alcohol.