Dr. Brenda Smith
Most research demonstrates a correlation between child poverty and child maltreatment reporting at the county level. So why is it that some of the poorest rural counties in the country – which are also majority populations of color – have some of the lowest rates of child maltreatment reporting?
In this episode, guest Dr. Brenda Smith examines the topic of inequities among states and counties in child maltreatment reporting. Findings from her research examining rural counties and child maltreatment report rates are discussed, and possible explanations and implications pertaining to variations in child maltreatment reporting are highlighted. Suggestions for individuals interested in research addressing social justice in the child welfare system are provided.
Brenda D. Smith is associate professor and Ph.D. program director at the University of Alabama School of Social Work. Her research focuses on social justice in the child welfare system, and ways that organizational and policy contexts can affect practice in child welfare and other human services settings. Her recent work has focused on policy disparities between and within states, and surprising child maltreatment report rates in rural counties with majority populations of color. Dr. Smith received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration.
When first presented with the relationship between low child maltreatment reports in rural, impoverished African American communities in this podcast, I immediately thought of negative reasons why the relationship was not what you would expect. I appreciated that the podcast presented the idea that African Americans often care for children in a village type format. African American communities do have more support in child rearing because the kinship relationships are broad and community based. This podcast was interesting and compelling in a concise format.
“Counties with many risk factors have lower numbers of child maltreatment report rates” – What?! I was shocked hearing this. My guess would be that counties, especially rural counties, with multiple risk factors would have a positive correlation with child maltreatment. From the podcast I understood that the reason to this could be strong network of social supports that prevents child maltreatment, lack of trust in formal authorities causes less reporting, or the professionals that should be making the reporting do not disclose incidents or are reluctant to report because they may feel guilty about the lack of resources in the county already. In addition to these reasons, it could also be that rural counties experience discrimination whether racial or socioeconomic, and do not have accessible resources to support child and family well-being. Currently, the Kids Count Profile for 2021 shows that in the state of IL there are 436,000 children in poverty. While it is an improvement from 2010, it’s still an issue. So what can we do to further help low-income families?
Source: https://assets.aecf.org/m/databook/2021KCDB-profile-IL.pdf