CPI 3.4 Abuse/Neglect Investigations - Case Actions By County And Region FY2016-FY2025

Child Protective Investigations (CPI) conducts a traditional investigation or Alternative Response (AR) investigation. Both investigations require caseworkers to assess safety and take needed actions to protect a child while assessing any risk of abuse or neglect in the foreseeable future. AR cases present a less adversarial more collaborative approach to working with families by allowing for family engagement along with other community supports to ensure child safety. AR differs from traditional investigations in that AR cases are Priority 2 cases involving victims who are age 6 or older, there is no substantiation of allegations, no entry of perpetrators into the Central Registry (a repository for reports of child abuse and neglect), and there is a heightened focus on guiding the family to plan for safety in a way that works for them and therefore sustains safety.

Completed investigations only include those cases conducted as a traditional investigation that were not administratively closed or merged into another stage. An investigation can only be administratively closed if all allegations have a disposition of administrative closure. A completed investigation can include more than one alleged victim. Completed investigations do not include any AR cases. A description of AR and how it differs from a traditional investigation is in the CPS glossary.

At the end of a completed investigation, CPI assesses child safety, the risk of abuse or neglect in the foreseeable future, the ability of the family to reduce the risk without CPI intervention, the ability of CPI to provide needed services and other circumstances in the case to decide whether to provide ongoing services.

FOOTNOTES

The Case Action Family Substitute Care includes investigations that resulted in at least one child (not necessarily all children in the home) being removed. Does not equal number of children removed.

This chart addresses Texas Family Code Sec. 264.0147(b)(3) and Texas Human Resources Code Sec. 40.0516(a)(2)(3).
Organization: City of Austin
Organization URL: https://catalog.data.gov/organization/austin-tx
Last updated: 2026-02-10
Tags: abuse neglect investigations, case actions, child protective investigations, cpi, cps, data book, databook, dfps, inv, investigations, oidb