Jesse J Helton

Saint Louis University | SLU · School of Social Work

Average life expectancies have lengthened across human history. As a result, there is an increased need to care for a greater number of individuals experiencing common age-related declines in health. This has helped to spur a rapidly increasing focus on understanding “health span”, the portion of the life-course spent functionally healthy. Yet to p...

Introduction Most studies on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have largely employed retrospective measures from adults, eschewing prospective measures in child samples. In this paper, we tracked the accrual of ACEs during childhood in a sample of children left in-home following a Child Protection Services investigation. Methods Data from three...

Overview of provision of early childhood education for young children involved with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health dilemma that disproportionately affects minority women in the United States. The present study utilized data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW II) to examine the longitudinal course of IPV outcomes reported by minority women involved with Child Protective Services (...

The purpose of this study was to examine the possible ecological association between aggregate blood lead levels (BLL) and rates of child maltreatment. To this end, we employed an ecologic study design, analyzing results from 59,645 child BLL tests between the years 1996 and 2007, and 6,640 substantiated maltreatment investigations from 2006 to 201...

Technical reprot

Research brief

Individuals reporting suspected child abuse or neglect will naturally wonder what will happen to the child once they report. Any consideration of policy and practice on reporting should also be informed by knowledge of the outcomes of reporting. These outcomes vary enormously, from screening the referral out with no further action on one end of a c...

Research brief

Annual monitoring report

To date, a substantial body of research exists suggesting an association between indicators of intelligence and various deleterious outcomes, including externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems. Much of this research, however, has focused on samples drawn from the general population, thus it remains less clear how (and if) intelligence re...

To date, a substantial body of research exists suggesting an association between indicators of intelligence and various deleterious outcomes, including externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems. Much of this research, however, has focused on samples drawn from the general population, thus it remains less clear how (and if) intelligence re...

Background: Child welfare professionals are charged with protecting children from non-accidental caregiving behaviors resulting in intentional injuries as well as environmental risks and parenting behaviors resulting in unintentional injuries. Yet little is known about unintentional injury prevalence and risk factors by child welfare placement typ...

For children who have been sexually abused, emergency department (ED) professionals provide immediate medical care, including testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, prophylaxis for potential HIV exposure, and emergency contraception.¹ In some cases, ED clinicians conduct forensic examinations to assist with child protection and...

Objective: Exposure to violent victimization is associated with higher rates of mental health and substance use disorders (SUD). Some youth who experience multiple victimizations and associated characteristics (i.e. poly-victims) are at heightened risk for long term problems. Thus, we conducted the first study to examine how heterogeneity in exper...

This study examined foster parent physical and mental health over time. It was hypothesized that increased severity and frequency of child behavioural problems, whether externalizing or internalizing, would be associated with poorer health over time, especially for foster parents ≥60 years of age. Data from the baseline and Wave 2 interview of the...

Background To better protect children from chronic maltreatment, it is vital to understand characteristics of families most at-risk for ongoing child protective service (CPS) investigations. Families of children with chronic health conditions that require hospitalization may be at an increased risk of a subsequent report shortly after the close of...

Nearly 13 million children in the United States live in households struggling with food insecurity. Although biosocial theories suggest a strong link between the lack of food and child maltreatment, and a handful of studies have established a correlation between nutritional deficits and family violence, it is unclear if household food insecurity it...

Objectives: Although there is agreement that childhood disability is both a risk and result of maltreatment, the extent of disability in the child welfare system remains unclear. Our objective is to determine the prevalence and severity of child impairment in a national sample of child abuse and neglect investigations in the United States. Method...

Background: Although victimization is a known contributor to the development of substance use disorders, no research has simultaneously examined how characteristics of victimization experienced over time, such as the type of abuse, the presence of poly-victimization, closeness to perpetrator(s), life threat or fear, and negative social reactions t...

This study examined the food security status of a mother at risk for child protective service involvement in Missouri. Participants were recruited through a statewide prevention program utilizing Nurturing Parenting Program for families of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers (n = 129). These mothers reported food security status over the previous y...

Children experiencing or witnessing violence in the home are at risk of a number of cognitive, social, and behavioral challenges as they age. A handful of recent studies have suggested that food insecurity may be one factor associated with violence against children in the home. The present study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study...

The impact of food insecurity on child development in the general U.S. population is well-established, yet little is known about the harm of food neglect relative to other types of maltreatment. Due to the harmful physiological impact of inadequate nutrients and the social impact of food-related stress, it was hypothesized that food neglect would b...

Although it is well established that daily routines are important for family well-being, very little research has been done on how foster parents establish and integrate new foster children into family routines. We used a mixed-methods, cross-sectional design, focused on qualitative results to explore how foster parents utilize routines. Twenty-thr...

Although children with a learning disability (LD) are at an increased risk of sexual abuse, it is unclear whether conditions specific to their impairment are associated with sexual assault or if risk derives from other comorbid conditions such as behavioral problems, social skill deficits, or loneliness. Using a national probability study of child...

Although most child welfare placements receive a rigorous assessment and ongoing safety monitoring, it is still unclear which is safest in terms of physical abuse. Our goals for this study were to assess the relative risk of physical assault for different child welfare placements in a national sample of youth and examine that risk within placement...

When children are placed into foster care the caseworker must give preference to an adult relative, many of whom are grandparents, over an unrelated caregiver. This kinship preference is based in evolutionary biology, which suggests that the imperative to care for a child should be greater for kin versus non-kin. However, not all kin are related to...

The National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW II) has followed children from Child Protective Service (CPS) investigation into emerging adulthood. How these emerging adults compare to national peers in measures of well-being and criminal victimization are of major interest in determining whether CPS-investigated youth are more vulne...

Among their many responsibilities, foster parents are tasked with providing healthy food and proper nutrition to children with a variety of physical, psychological, and emotional needs. Using the lens of symbolic interactionism, this exploratory mixed methods study examined how foster parents attend to the nutritional needs of abused and neglected...

This study examines the time to re-report following the close of a maltreatment investigation for cases involving food neglect. Data on families of children 0 to 17 involved in Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations from a merger of the 2010 cohort of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW II) and the National Child A...

This publication is one of a series of research briefs from the Children and Family Research Center (CFRC) in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Access is available to a wide range of CFRC publications at http://cfrc.illinois.edu/publications.php. Topics include child welfare administration and policy, chil...

A growing number of studies have examined the "immigrant paradox" with respect to health behaviors in the United States. However, little research attention has been afforded to the study of adverse childhood experiences (ACE; neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and witnessing violence) among immigrants in the United States. The present study, using...

Through a review of empirical and practice literature, this chapter describes the different outcomes that result from reporting child maltreatment—screen outs, substantiation, ongoing child protective service, child placement, and referral to differential response—and examines their frequency and predictors. Most reports receive a modest response (...

This study analyzed the frequency and correlates of criminal investigation of child maltreatment in cases investigated by child protective service (CPS), using national probability data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Criminal investigations were conducted in slightly more than 25% of cases. Communities varied substanti...

Using a national probability sample of families involved in child welfare, we estimated food stamp participation rates based on child placement following maltreatment investigation. Of the 69% of households that retained their child after investigation and were eligible for food stamps, 73% participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Prog...

Research on disability prevalence among children in child welfare settings has typically rendered disability as a dichotomous yes/no variable. Dichotomous assessments do not take into account how disability impairs body functions, limits activities of daily living, and restricts participation in activities. A superior measurement method positions d...

The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence and correlates of obesity among youth investigated for maltreatment in the United States. Participants were drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being II, a national probability study of 5,873 children aged birth to 17 years under investigation for maltreatment in 200...

Background: Children entering foster care are at high risk for chronic physical, developmental, and psychological conditions requiring intensive health and rehabilitative services. Even though Medicaid covers all children in foster care, research shows that many children with chronic health conditions (CCHC) do not receive the necessary specialized...

Background: No study to date has examined the prevalence of obesity in a nationally representative sample of children who were part of a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation for abuse and neglect. Further, no study has been able to examine differences in obesity risk by child and family demographics and maltreatment case characteristics. T...

Background and Purpose. In some cases in which intrafamilial child maltreatment is reported, child protective services (CPS) and police both investigate. Criminal justice involvement is consequential because it can lead to prosecution and because it can both challenge and facilitate child protection interventions. However, there is little research...

This study examined the relative risk of placement disruption for 3-10 year-old children placed in out-of-home care based on the biological relatedness of the placement caregiver and child disability status: no disability, a non-behavioral disability only, a behavioral disability only, or both a non-behavioral and behavioral disability. Data were u...

Previous research suggests a curvilinear relationship between child disability and physical abuse, with children with mild impairments at greater risk than both children with severe impairments and superior functioning. Using a national probability sample of families investigated for maltreatment (N = 1675), this study tested for both linear and cu...

Purpose: Childhood obesity continues to be a public health concern. There are currently many efforts underway to prevent obesity and promote healthy eating and exercise for most of the U.S. child population (Story, Sallis, & Orleans, 2009). However, children in foster care are overlooked in epidemiological studies and evidence-based intervention st...

This study examined associated factors of placement into formal substitute care following a maltreatment investigation and the relationship between children's entry into formal substitute care and changes in caregivers. The sample from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being included 3038 children who lived with biological parents or...

This chapter examines the growing use of kinship care as a placement option for children who must be removed from their homes of origin. It highlights the tensions between the recruitment of blood relatives and the selection of trained, licensed foster parents as agents of children's wellbeing. Although in principle, relatives can serve as licensed...

This study presents the beliefs of three resilient African-American adolescent mothers transitioning from foster care into independent living in Illinois. Young mothers were followed for at least seven months as they participated in an innovative writing workshop for older foster youth. During this time, youth repeatedly initiated discussions of pa...

In the early 1980s the term “straight edge” was coined to describe a youth subculture within the punk rock scene, a subculture that chose a lifestyle that abstained from alcohol, tobacco and drugs as well as promiscuous sex. While considered a smaller youth scene today than in its peak years of the late 1980s, straight edge has evolved into an inte...