The purpose of this study was to assess the presence of evidence-based information about child maltreatment fatalities (CMFs) and risk factors for CMFs in pre-service child welfare training curricula in the United States. In this first paper to examine the extent to which child welfare workers receive content on CMFs in their pre-service child welfare training, we reviewed curricula from 20 states. We searched for content related to risk assessment and fatality characteristics in the following areas: child risk factors, parent risk factors, and family/ household risk factors. Our results suggest that workers' receive very little content regarding CMFs. We discuss the findings with regard to child welfare training and practice.Keywords Child welfare training Á Fatal maltreatment Á Child death Á Evidence-based practice Over the last several decades, child welfare professionals have increasingly turned their attention to the problem of children who die as a result of maltreatment-child maltreatment fatalities (CMFs). The field's knowledge of risk factors has improved (Chance and Scannapieco 2002; Graham et al. 2010;McClain et al. 1993;Stiffman et al. 2002) and there are a number of responses and prevention plans in place today because of this increased attention and improvements (Douglas 2005;Durfee et al. 2009;Durfee and Durfee 1995;Webster et al. 2003). Nevertheless, the rate of CMFs remains high (Finkelhor et al. 2010). Recent research on the intersection of CMFs and the child welfare profession indicates that child welfare workers have a lack of knowledge about risk factors for maltreatment-related fatalities, even in the face of training about CMFs (Douglas 2012b); further social science text books on child abuse and neglect show that minimal information on CMFs is presented on fatalities (Douglas and Serino 2013). This brief paper reports on the prevalence of CMFs content and risk factors for CMFs in pre-serve child welfare training curricula.
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