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CPS (Child Protection Services) workers are required to assess the level of safety of referred minors and to identify the best intervention to protect them. CPS workers’ decision making, in particular the child removal decision, has been the focus of a growing number of studies in order to identify which factors influence workers’ evaluation. The present study aimed to investigate both familial and mother/father-related risk and protective factors that influenced CPS workers’ decision about the child placement through the “judgment analysis” approach.

We analyzed 340 social records of families referred to CPS due to child maltreatment were retrospectively analyzed on the basis of the Protocol of risk and Protective factors (Di Blasio, 2005). The mean age of the mothers was 36.85 (SD = 7.61; range = 17–58), while the mean age of the fathers was 41.86 (SD = 8.85; range = 21–72). The mean age of the children was 8.37 …