By Ivy Hammond, , Wendy Wiegmann, Joseph Magruder, Daniel Webster, Bridgette Lery, Sarah Benatar, Jaclyn Chambers, Laura Packard Tucker, Katrina Brewsaugh, Annelise Loveless, and Jonah Norwitt
In 2014, California’s Senate Bill (S. B.) 855 created the state’s Opt-In Commercially Sexually Exploited Child (CSEC) Program, which gives participating county child welfare agencies guidance and funding to prevent and intervene on behalf of children who are or at risk of experiencing CSE. Nearly a decade later, with most counties having opted into the program, California is well positioned to evaluate this policy’s implementation and the extent to which the legislation may be influencing desired outcomes for young people. This report contains key findings, promising practices, and recommendations from our evaluation of the state’s CSEC program.
Why This Matters
The commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) of children and young people is a human rights concern and a public health challenge. CSE refers broadly to any activity or crime that involves the sexual abuse and exploitation of a child for monetary or nonmonetary benefit. Over a six-year period, California’s child protection system received roughly 70,000 maltreatment reports alleging CSEC. About a quarter of these reports were substantiated, meaning there was enough evidence to conclude that CSE of a child likely occurred. Research suggests that CSE during childhood can have serious consequences for its survivors, including exposure to violence and other traumatic events, mental health disorders, reproductive health complications, and internalized coping behaviors.
Key Takeaways
Implementing S. B. 855 has fostered strong interagency collaboration and communication. Interagency collaboration has improved following S. B. 855, and those we spoke with reported positive relationships among agencies engaged in the county’s CSEC response. However, counties would benefit from greater intercounty service coordination.
Staff and placement shortages exacerbate CSE service challenges. Staff turnover reduces trust between children, families, and county agencies; fragments ongoing training efforts; and chips away at institutional knowledge about CSE. The shortage of placements appropriate for young people experiencing or at risk of CSE came up repeatedly in interviews.
B. 855 gave child welfare agencies responsibility for caring for this population, but many feel they have inadequate tools to be successful and sometimes feel undermined by other agency priorities. Child welfare staff bear the primary responsibility for the safety and care of these children but expressed concern that their mandates sometimes conflict with other stakeholders. The lack of a shared agenda can undermine interagency collaboration.
It is challenging to serve young people experiencing CSE who are not formally involved with the child welfare system. Many counties did not have a clear process for serving young people who do not have an open child welfare case, nor a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities for which agency has oversight for these young people.
The majority of CSE reports are screened in for investigation, but a minority of those investigated are substantiated. Nearly two-thirds of the 70,334 CSE reports made between July 1, 2015, and June 30, 2022, in opted-in counties were screened in for investigation. Among those, one in five were deemed inconclusive and nearly one in four reports were substantiated.
A minority of young people were in child welfare cases or placements at the time CSE concerns were identified. Among young people with confirmed CSE, 4 percent had some placement history but were not in care when CSE concerns were documented, more than one in nine were in a placement, and nearly 3 percent were absent from placement.
Promising practices
Assign and consolidate CSE cases to specific frontline workers rather than distributing them throughout the workforce.
Implement 24/7 dual responses from child welfare and CSE advocates (voluntary nonprofit) when going out for CSE investigations.
On-staff clinicians and staff dedicated to recovering missing young people may improve county efforts.
Partnering with outside organizations can be effective in connecting at-risk young people who are not child welfare involved.
Weighting CSE cases more heavily when calculating caseloads acknowledges that they are more intensive and may protect against burnout.
Use a trauma-informed court specifically designated to hear CSE cases.
How We Did It
Our evaluation approach for California’s CSEC program consists of two main components: an implementation study and an outcome study.
The implementation study focused on opportunities for continuous quality improvement and cross-system collaboration. We gathered data from annual county program plans and a CSEC program administrator survey. We also conducted key informant interviews with agency and provider staff and focus groups with adults who experienced CSE as minors in a subset of 12 counties.
In the outcome study, we examined child welfare system involvement for young people after S. B. 855’s implementation. We analyzed information recorded in the statewide administrative database to describe the child welfare system experiences of 38,168 young people who met California’s definition of CSEC or were identified as being at heightened risk of experiencing CSE. We studied the identification of CSE, documentation practices, revictimiz
Washington DC: The Urban Institute, 2023. 97p.