South Carolina Child and Vulnerable Adult Abuse and Neglect Data
Information about child and vulnerable adult abuse reports, including victims, perpetrators, and reporters, as well as status of claim substantiation and foster care placement. DSS defines “vulnerable adults” to include anyone 18 or older who has a “physical or mental condition which prevents them from providing for his or her own care of protection.” This includes anyone impaired because of “brain damage, advanced age, and physical, mental or emotional dysfunction.”
All instances of abuse and neglect reported to DSS
Access
South Carolina data on child and vulnerable adult abuse and neglect are available through the South Carolina Department of Social Services for research purposes. Researchers must receive permission from the South Carolina Department of Social Services (SCDSS) director. Requests including description of professional qualifications, identification of research assistants, description of project and field of study, reasons for requesting the data, and dates requested can be sent to [email protected]. Researchers applying for grants to fund their projects should submit applications to the director prior to submitting applications to funding organization.
If the request is approved, researchers must enter into a Data Use Agreement (DUA) with SCDSS and Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office (RFA) that will detail the terms of use of the data. All electronic records containing confidential information will be disposed of a pre-determined number of years after the study has completed. The number of years will be determined via the DUA.
Timeline for Access
The length of time to review applications can vary by project and linking requests.
Cost
The DSS charges a fee for staff programming effort to fulfill data requests.
Linking
The Department of Social Services uses these identifiers to link researchers’ datasets to data within the SC DSS Child and Adult Protective Services System (CAPSS).
Identifiers Available for Linking
- First and last name
- Date of birth
- Social security number
Linking to Outside Data Sources
South Carolina Social Services data are available for linking with outside data sources through RFA. RFA maintains an integrated data system, including information about clients’ use of programs and services of various state, private, and non-profit entities. The system enables researchers to analyze the use of services and client crossover among these entities. This includes data on legal and safety services, social services, behavioral health, child care, education, disease registries, Medicare, Medicaid, state employee health services, free clinics, community centers, and homelessness. Data set quality varies across agencies.
While RFA maintains these data and is able to link these data sets, each originating agency maintains control of its own data and dictates how they may be released. Researchers who are interested in linking SCDSS data to other data sets must first request permission from the Department of Social Services. In order to link Department of Social Services data to the other RFA data sets, separate data use agreements with RFA and the other agencies, as well as approval from the South Carolina Data Oversight Council and IRB is often required.
If approved, the researcher must submit to RFA a key file containing study participants’ identifying information (which can include full name, date of birth, and Social Security number), and RFA will conduct a probabilistic match to link other data sets, after which researchers will receive de-identified, linked data. (Researchers may include a non-identifying “study ID” in the key file and request that RFA include the “study ID” in the data file.)
Data Contents
Partial List of Variables
Perpetrator/victim’s status, perpetrator’s relationship to victim-survivor, reporter, intake location, indicator for claim substantiation, indicators for years of intake and foster care placement.
Other Research Using this Data Set
Kotch, Jonathan B., Dorothy C. Browne, Christopher L. Ringwalt, Paul W. Stewart, Ellen Ruina, Kathleen Holt, Betsy Lowman, and Jin-Whan Jung. “Risk of Child Abuse or Neglect in a Cohort of Low-Income Children.” Child Abuse & Neglect 19, no. 9 (September 1, 1995): 1115–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/0145-2134(95)00072-G.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, KIDS COUNT Data Center, https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/map/7339-total-number-of-founded-investigations-for-child-abuse-and-neglect?loc=42&loct=5#5/any/false/false/871/any/14417/Orange/
Other Documentation
The Circle of Love: South Carolina’s Integrated Data System (note: Effective July 1, 2014, the Office of Research and Statistics became part of an independent agency operating as the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office.)