Maternal Intellectual Disability and Infant Neglect: Child Welfare Risk Assessments in Norway, England and California, USA

This paper examines how a sample of 297 child welfare workers in Norway, England and the state of California in the USA assess risk based on a vignette that combines parent intellectual disability and infant neglect. The study combines fixed-choice and open-ended questions. Workers first attach a risk score to the case and then explain in their own words the reasons behind their assessment. Key findings show that workers across all countries agree that this is a high-risk case. However, reasons behind the assessments vary across countries. Californians display a greater range and more uniform reasoning compared to the English and Norwegians, and differ in their concern with mother’s cognitive functioning, and child age and health. English and Norwegians are generally more similar, but differ on attention to social and environmental factors and attention to the mother’s cognitive functioning. I discuss these findings in relation to research on parental intellectual disability, child welfare orientation and familiarity with assessment tools. The study supports existing research on parental intellectual disability in the child welfare system. I argue that both child welfare orientation and assessment tools are important to understand these differences in reasoning.