Connecticut’s Novel Prenatal Substance Exposure Policy Is Associated With Declining CPS Reports And Foster Placements

In 2019, Connecticut became the first state to implement a deidentified notification policy for infants with prenatal substance exposure in response to updated provisions contained in the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) of 1974. Our study aimed to test whether Connecticut's notification policy was associated with an increase in Child Protective Services (CPS) interactions for this population. We analyzed child welfare and vital records over the course of a sixty-six-month time frame starting two years before the policy took effect. We used interrupted time series models to estimate monthly reports to CPS and foster care placements for infants with prenatal substance exposure in Connecticut's eight counties between March 2017 and July 2022. Reports and foster placements decreased for newborns with prenatal substance exposure after policy implementation. After covariates were controlled for, the adjusted rate of reports per birth decreased by 7 percent per month after the policy's implementation. The proportion of prenatal substance exposure reports resulting in foster care placement decreased by 4 percent per month. These findings suggest that Connecticut's approach to CAPTA was associated with a reduction in child welfare encounters among infants with prenatal substance exposure.