Our Commitment to Promoting Diversity,Equity,Inclusion,and Justice in Child Maltreatment

Introduction

In this issue of Child Maltreatment (CM), the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC), the APSAC Board, and the CM editorial team discuss APSAC’s position on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) for APSAC and its publications. In the following commentary, we extend and expand on those views with regard to the Journal, affirm our commitment and plans for addressing DEIJ in this publication, and highlight articles in this issue continuing our discussion about these important aspects of the child welfare and child protection systems.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice in Academic Journals

While racial and ethnic disparities have been discussed for decades in the child welfare and health systems, systemic racism has received comparatively little attention in academic research and academic journals (Harris, 2021; Roberts et al., 2020). As we study the nature of our knowledge about child abuse and neglect, the rationality and underpinnings of our scientific understanding, and evidence and evidence-based practices, it becomes increasingly apparent that individual and systemic biases are embedded across the research enterprise, from design and implementation, through submission, review, editing and publication (Boyd et al., 2020; Ogedegbe, 2020). As Merchant et al. (2021, p. 607) said: “This systemic lack of diversity in academic medicine and medical publishing is one of many representations of societal structural racism.”

It is vital for academic journals to address how racism in publication is related to child protection and child welfare research. As a platform for development and expansion of ideas across different research, policy, and practice areas, journals are an important source of information to explore and understand the scope of racism as well as effective measures to address it. Journals can shape the field by promoting antiracist policies, by highlighting antiracist science, and by encouraging discourse about the structure and consequences of systemic racism. However, publication is only a small part in the overall development of scientific knowledge, and research is also heavily influenced by knowledge gaps and the interests of researchers and funders. Our work is also about the broader issue of child maltreatment – whether or not it is detected and responded to by welfare systems. We need to truly understand what DEIJ means in terms of prevalence, impacts, prevention, and system involvement. Beyond our present focus on racism, journals can also address gender diversity, sexuality diversity, and neurodiversity (Adams and Neville, 2021; Fletcher-Watson et al., 2021; Heidari et al., 2016). Journals also serve as pathways for career advancement for researchers and scientists through publication and participation as reviewers and editorial board members. Moreover, peer-reviewed journals and their associated peoples (authors, editors, reviewers) are held to high standards by the scientific community–not only in the media for current events or research commentary, but in matters of scientific integrity and ethics in publication.

How we frame the problems is central to how we address them. We begin with two primary assumptions. First, that individual and systematic racism are harmful to the scientific process, including scientific peer review and publication. Second, that race is a social construct without biological meaning. Our colleagues in medicine, psychology, and social work have highlighted that we need to be clear that racial differences in health and social outcomes represent the consequences of structural racism and the inequitable distribution of opportunities along racialized lines (American Psychological Association, 2019; Herrenkohl et al., 2020; Rogers and Heard-Garris, 2023; Trent et al., 2019). They have begun to extensively address this in research (Boyd, 2020; Edgoose et al., 2022; Headen et al., 2022; Jindal et al., 2020; Ogedegbe, 2020; Roberts et al., 2020). Racial disproportionality and disparity have been clearly identified in child welfare processes (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2016; Harris, 2021; Palusci and Botash, 2021), and we need to be consistent in the words we use and how we use them to appropriately attribute disproportionality to racism and bias when these are the driving factors. For publications, racial and ethnic identities are covered in Section 5.7 of the APA Publication Manual, Seventh Edition (American Psychological Association, 2020). Race refers to physical differences that groups and cultures consider socially significant, while ethnicity refers to shared cultural characteristics, such as language, ancestry, practices, and beliefs. Race is a social construct that is not universal, so one must be careful not to impose racial labels on ethnic groups. It is recommended to use the racial and/or ethnic terms in writing that participants themselves use and be as clear and specific as possible, with commonly accepted designations (e.g., census categories) while being sensitive to participants’ preferences. There are additional rules for describing origin and ancestry depending on the peoples being discussed.

Many publishers and academic societies have introduced new DEIJ policies, training, procedures, and practices. All demonstrate their values in various ways. At a minimum, journal websites can post simple statements like the following example: “The Northwestern University Law Review is fundamentally committed to diversity, in both its membership and its scholarship” (Northwestern University Law Review, n. d.). Other journals require all submissions to include a discussion of DEIJ as it applies to the methods of the reviewed research (e.g., nature of the sample, limitations of the measurement), to discuss whether the body of knowledge reviewed appropriately addresses issues of diversity, and to evaluate the results through an antiracist lens (Tajima, 2021). Some make DEIJ concerns criteria for publication, but others leave these to be defined by the authors and instead begin with updates to author instructions regarding the appropriate uses of race and ethnicity to ensure that they reflect social constructs, instead of differences in biological factors. Journals may also ask reviewers to pay specific attention to the appropriate use of race and ethnicity when they evaluate a manuscript (First & Kemper, 2022). As other examples, some journals focus on promoting scholarship “from a diverse cross-section of authors across a range of interdisciplinary research communities with the goals of achieving meaningful, real-world impact for disadvantaged populations” (Children & Youth Services Review, 2021). Others advise inclusion of local researchers, particularly on research related to representation of marginalized and discriminated groups. Still others favor women, young scientists, and those with lived experience as peer reviewers and editorial board members. Some advise their reviewers to try to evaluate the merit of an article in light of the minority status of the author. All of these options have been under consideration at Child Maltreatment.

Our publisher states: “Acknowledging the prevalence of structural discrimination and bigotry and believing that diversity is the cornerstone of a vibrant culture, we will challenge unfair power structures within publishing and higher education to help create a more equitable future for all” (Sage, 2023). The Committee on Publications Ethics, of which Sage is a member, has published Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing for all published content, including special issues and conference proceedings. They recommend that “…editors must transparently communicate the procedures that the journal follows” and that:

“…publishers and editors are responsible for promoting accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusivity in all aspects of the publication. Editorial decisions should be based on scholarly merit. They should not be affected by the origins of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. Journals should ensure no policies create an exclusionary environment for anyone wanting to engage with the journal and should regularly assess their policies for inclusivity.” (Committee on Publication Ethics, 2022)

Our Commitment and Steps Child Maltreatment Will Take

So, what do we, the editors and staff of Child Maltreatment, mean when we talk about DEIJ? We believe that Child Maltreatment should represent the strengths and diversity of our readership and those affected by child abuse and neglect in CM’s editors, staff, reviewers, and authors. We believe that Child Maltreatment should give everyone equal opportunity to be involved, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, gender, or status. We believe that Child Maltreatment should take active steps to increase the involvement of marginalized and non-majority peoples in this work, and that their involvement in our publication process should be fair and unbiased. We will strive to increase our inclusion of studies that examine the role of systemic racism in perpetuating gaps in the prevention, identification, and reporting of maltreatment and treatment of children and families. As our colleagues in academic medicine suggest, we should collect, report, interpret, and present data on participants’ race and ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, and experiences with racism, and develop interventions that seek to mitigate racism or overcome its effects (Jindal et al., 2020), and we need to consider the discussion/analyses and policy implications as they pertain to people from historically marginalized groups.

We, the editorial team of Child Maltreatment, are reflecting on our mission, procedures and staff. We support APSAC’s commitments to promote DEIJ for its publications and Child Maltreatment, and we recognize that the work of promoting these principles through APSAC’s publications is a lifelong endeavor. With guidance from APSAC, the APSAC Anti-Racism Commission, Sage Publishing, and the Committee on Publication Ethics, we will first make changes within our internal processes, and will revisit our editorial and publication guidelines to ensure that this information is disseminated to authors and reviewers. To this end, we will rewrite our guidelines with recommendations a priori about study samples, variables, design, and the discussion and generalizability of results as guideposts for research studies, as well as posteriori during review and editing. We will then ask researchers and authors to specifically define race and ethnicity used in their work, specify how they are used, and explain why this information is important to their study (Boyd et al., 2020). If samples are not diverse and do not include those traditionally underrepresented, they must provide a rationale or explanation. We will ask that they do not use methods that are disproportionate in race or that inappropriately treat race as a biological rather than as a social construct (Roberts et al., 2020). Furthermore, we will take steps to increase the representation of Black, Latine, and indigenous scholars among our editors, reviewers, and editorial board, mentor these underrepresented scholars, and establish new mechanisms for their voices to be heard. With the help of APSAC and Sage, we will advocate for compensating reviewers who are too often asked to share their expertise in this area without remuneration. We will raise the visibility of these issues by having dedicated calls for papers, being transparent about whether we are fulfilling these commitments, and working with other journals to discuss ways to address racial inequality and systemic racism in our field. We can “instill hope” as George Ogedegbe (2020) pointed out, by intentionally focusing on the problems and our successes in addressing them.

We also agree that none of these commitments will fully eliminate injustices and inequities within the field or even within Child Maltreatment. While the exact processes are still being worked out, we now commit to these actions in representation, process, and content:

1. The Editorial team and Editorial Board, in collaboration with the APSAC Board of Directors, will revise the current Aims and Scope to explicitly state our commitment to anti-racist research and publication and present the revised Aims and Scope to the APSAC Publications Committee for approval. Estimated completion: January 2024.

In This Issue

The papers in this issue address DEIJ in child welfare and child protection systems at a variety of points, from reporting, to risk assessment, substantiation, and service provision. Cho et al. (2023) report that injustice extends beyond CPS, finding that Indigenous students had twice the risk for suspension compared to White students for out-of-school suspensions and the risk difference decreased as the number of child maltreatment allegations increased. They concluded this was due to systemic racism; however, it is apparent that any discussion of race and racism in our systems begins with its confounding by poverty. While almost one-fifth of U.S. children live in poverty, most families in poverty do not neglect their children. The child protection system responds to neglect in children because of financial, food, transportation and housing insecurity while underestimating neglect among higher socioeconomic and majority race groups. Sattler (2023) examined how these risk factors co-occurred among families in poverty across early childhood and whether their risk profiles were differentially related to physical and supervisory neglect across time. She found four risk profiles across early childhood with heterogeneity in risk factors among families in poverty and different risks for later neglect. One would think this would be different for abuse as compared to neglect. Jones and Kim et al., (2023) conducted a cross-sectional study using the Military Health System Data Repository for births between 2016 and 2018 to evaluate racial disparities and other factors in the suspicion of child abuse. Unsurprisingly, they found higher military rank (with the same health insurance but higher income) was independently associated with decreased odds of suspicion and reporting.

When it comes to other marginalized groups, differing risk profiles emerge, but the effects of poverty remain. Lyons et al. (2023) studied factors associated with alcohol-related child removal among American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) adults enrolled in a clinical trial of an alcohol intervention. No relationship was found between alcohol-related child removal and alcohol intervention outcomes, suggesting that strategies to prevent alcohol-related separation and to support reunification should be integrated into addiction treatment in AI/AN communities. Among other things, O’Donnell et al. (2023) investigated Australian trends during 2012–2019 in prenatal and infant child protection notifications, substantiations, and out-of-home care and the extent of over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infants. They found a significant over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families in all parts of the child protection system over the study period, with overwhelming over-representation in the rates of children with prenatal and postnatal notifications, substantiations, and admission to care. They concluded that there “is an urgent need to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community driven and culturally embedded services are available for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander pregnant women and families” (p/10/13).

Stevenson and Rivers (2023) examined the effects of child race, perpetrator race, and abuse disclosure status on substantiation outcomes within the context of a formal forensic interview. Abuse substantiation was more likely in cases involving (a) abuse disclosure (vs. no disclosure), (b) White children (vs. children of color), and (c) perpetrators of color (vs. White perpetrators). Also, the effect of abuse disclosure on increased abuse substantiation was greater for White children than for children of color. These findings suggest that children of color are not provided the benefits of substantiation when they disclose their experiences of sexual abuse. When their case is substantiated, children received CPS services disproportionately based on race. Calvert et al. (2023) found only one-third of identified children received 30-day follow-up, with Black and older children and those with anxiety or depression being more likely to receive 30-day follow-up than were younger children, White children, and children without anxiety or depression.

Metzger et al. (2023) sought to better understand barriers and facilitators of service utilization for Black caregivers of youth referred to child advocacy centers (CACs), finding a lack of assistance and information in the referral and onboarding process, transportation issues, lack of childcare, restrictive employment hours, system mistrust, and stigma associated with the service system, as well as other parenting stressors. Maternal caregivers also shared suggestions for improving services at CACs, including increasing the length, breadth, and clarity of investigations conducted by child protection services and law enforcement agencies, providing case management services, and having more diverse staff and discussing racial stressors to improve engagement of Black families referred for trauma-related mental health services. In contrast, Covington et al. (2023) showed that risks for removal and congregate care placement were highly stratified by race/ethnicity, with vast geographic differences in both congregate care placement and ethno-racial disparities therein.

Perhaps it is helpful to examine the effects of race on protective factors as well. Ferguson et al. (2023) used a multi-method longitudinal study to examine parents’ racial identifications as possible resources, hypothesizing that Black parents with stronger racial group identification would demonstrate lower at-risk parenting, operationalized as lower child abuse risk and less negative observed parenting. Controlling for socioeconomic status, findings partially supported their hypothesis. Black parents’ greater racial identification was associated with lower child abuse risk and less observed negative parenting, whereas the reverse was true for White parents. In another study using the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System and U.S. Census data, Drake et al. (2023) examined Black–White and Latine–White disparities in reporting, substantiation, and home removal, controlling for social risk (e.g., child poverty) and child harm (e.g., infant mortality) disparities using non-child protective services (CPS) sources to unravel confounding in CPS data. They found Black–White and Latine–White CPS reporting disparities were lower than disparities in non-CPS risk benchmarks. There were different harm disparities, but they found no evidence that Black children were overreported relative to observed risks and harms reflected in non-CPS data.

We also need to consider the contributions of policy to racial disproportionality in child welfare systems. LaBrenz et al. (2023) examined the relationship between state child maltreatment policies and substantiation using the 2019 National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System and the State Child Abuse and Neglect Policy Database. They did not find a direct effect of state policy on substantiation, but there were significant interaction terms, with the inclusion of exposure to domestic violence, harsh punishment, or educational neglect in state policy being more strongly associated with substantiation for children of color than for White children.

In an attempt to disentangle these issues through research, there have been calls from scholars to “disaggregate” samples into same-race groups to empirically evaluate the benefits of disaggregation within a child welfare sample. Jones and Banaag et al., (2023) used National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System and U.S. Census data to employ sample and variable-creation disaggregation. The authors found that both kinds of disaggregation were demonstrably beneficial and should be considered for future research using national geographically structured child maltreatment data. There are many areas for future study, including identifying how theories are misapplied or misinterpreted, exploring the roles of explicit and implicit biases in reporters and institutions, and developing research methods to reveal and counteract them in child welfare and child protection systems, including across the many disciplines of professionals and others who report and research child maltreatment.

We hope to foster more systematic research on these issues and will require that the articles we publish are consistent with our principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice as outlined above and in the APSAC commentary. As an example, Valentino et al. (2023) discuss how to extend these efforts to promote anti-racist science, diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) by addressing prior omissions in the interpretation of the results in a prior paper (Valentino et al., 2012) and explicitly discussing how racism influences parenting and the intergenerational continuity of child abuse among Black families in the context of racism. This commentary and the other papers in this issue of Child Maltreatment are but an early step in these efforts, and we encourage the academic, clinical and research communities to join us in this important work by submitting papers, reviewing manuscripts, and promoting best practices to address racism in child maltreatment research publication.