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OHIO
General: Ohio Administrative Code rules, effective January 1, 1998, promulgate a two-track system. Intrafamilial reports of child abuse and neglect go into the Assessment Track, and third-party and out-of-home care reports go into the Investigation Track. The Family Risk Assessment Matrix is applied to the Assessment Track with a case resolution reported for the family, which determines the overall level of risk for the family. Investigation Track reports are assigned a case disposition of substantiated, indicated, or unsubstantiated. It is important to note that workers and data entry personnel are still being trained in the new system. Data on investigations are overreported; data on assessments are underreported. In several of the responses, the "Children in Need of Services" category includes children given a case resolution of low/moderate risk to high risk. Ohio counts these children as victims, unlike some of the other States which do assessments. Item 4.1: "Neglect or Deprivation of Necessities" includes medical neglect. Item 6.1: "Child Day Care Providers" includes only babysitters. Child day care providers may have been reported in the State category "Non-Related Adult," which maps here to "Non-Caretakers." Item 7.3: Preliminary data on response time indicate that responses to 97 percent of Priority 1 and Priority 2 incidents were initiated within 72 hours, as required. Responses to 66 percent of the Emergency incidents were initiated within an hour, as required. |