Sansone, G., Sajedinejad, S., Sistovaris, M., Fallon, B., Miller, S., Birken, C., Denburg, A., Jenkins, J., Levine, J., Mishna, F., Sokolowski, M. and Stewart, S. (2020). Expungement of Data in the Field of Child Welfare. Toronto, Ontario: Policy Bench, Fraser Mustard Institute of Human Development, University of Toronto.
Issue: The impact of data expungement in the field of child welfare.
Background: Child welfare agencies maintain records of all reports of child maltreatment and their outcomes in their information systems for the purposes of investigation, treatment, and prevention of child abuse and neglect. In some Canadian provinces and in most US states, case information on alleged child abuse is also added to a registry that may be accessible to other groups or agencies, including employers. While these systems are essential for protecting children from harm, the potential consequences faced by families and individuals after being added to a child welfare information system or registry have resulted in calls for reform. One proposed policy option to strengthen protections for individuals accused of child abuse is to enhance procedures for the expungement or removal of case records from the registry or from the local agency’s information system entirely, if the case is determined to be either unfounded or false. This issue is of importance because any changes to data expungement laws would have implications not only for children and adults involved in child welfare investigations, but also for research and evaluation of child welfare services.
Methods: A scan of existing peer reviewed and grey literature was carried out to identify, collect and synthesize research evidence exploring the issue of data expungement for child abuse cases. The process involved a series of steps including the identification of key words/search terms and relevant data sources; the development of search strategies; an extensive search of the literature; screening and data extraction; and a synthesis of the literature. Search terms included: expungement; child welfare; child abuse/maltreatment; and registry. Search strategies were developed to meet the parameters of each database and were refined throughout the process as results were reviewed. Pertinent information was extracted from the literature and summarized throughout the report.
Findings: The results of the literature scan revealed a limited number of published articles that addressed the issue of data expungement from child welfare databases, and none from Canada; the majority of research was exploratory and has largely focused on the topic of child abuse registries in the US. Findings showed that there is currently wide variation in legislation across jurisdictions in terms of when cases of reported child abuse are added to an information system or registry, and circumstances or timeframes under which they can be expunged. As a result, there remains a lack of agreement among researchers and courts as to what procedures and systems for maintaining child abuse records would best serve to balance the rights and needs of both children and adults. For example, while child abuse information systems serve an important function of identifying and protecting children from the risk of abuse or maltreatment, they may also have serious negative consequences for the individual accused of child abuse, including barriers to employment and other opportunities - with a disproportionate burden on certain groups (e.g. people of lower income, minorities, and women). There is a need for more research to compare and evaluate data expungement policies and their outcomes (e.g. rates of rereports, and any harms suffered by children and families) in order to gain a better understanding of the impact of such policies for both child welfare services and the families that require these services, and to help to inform Executive Summary future policies in Canada.