Predicting child welfare involvement in Ontario children and youth accessing mental health services: development of the Child and Youth Protection Risk Algorithm (CYPRA)

Children or youth becoming involved with child protective services is a rare occurrence that significantly impacts the child and family. Research has identified various factors related to involvement with child protective services. The use of these factors to identify children who are at an increased risk of becoming involved with child protective services is a potential way to direct early interventions to promote safety and permanency within families. Using a widely implemented children’s mental health assessment system, a predictive algorithm was developed to assess the risk for child welfare involvement for a large sample of clinically referred children and youth. Using decision tree modelling and risk factors identified in the literature, this algorithm was developed and provides assessors with a score of one to five, with five indicating the highest risk of future child welfare involvement. Findings indicated that the high-risk group demonstrated a significantly greater risk of future involvement with child protection services. The algorithm’s utility for care planning, resource allocation, and systems-level analysis is discussed.