Parental features and quality of life in the decision to remove children at risk from home

OBJECTIVES: The study examined the associations between the decisions of child protection officers to remove children at risk from home and a) the features of the children's parents and b) the quality of life the parents make it possible for their children to have. METHOD: 194 child protection workers completed a parental features questionnaire, child injury questionnaire, and Shye's Systemic Quality of Life Questionnaire on two children, one removed from home, the other remained. RESULTS: Parental cooperation with the worker, relationship with the child, addiction, and cleanliness were related to both the decision and the assessment of enabling quality of life. Parents' poverty, criminality, psychological problems, and cognitive impairment were related only to the workers assessment of parents enabling quality of life. Family status was related only to the decision. While injury to the child was associated with the decision, it added virtually nothing to the explanation of the decision beyond parental features and enabling. CONCLUSIONS: The variables related to the workers' assessment of the parents' enabling overlapped only partially with those related to the decision. The parents' features and enabling made only a modest contribution to explaining the workers' decisions. The findings suggest that the quality of life measure used in this study encompasses injury.