I'm a former foster-parent, so have interacted with my local CWS system pretty heavily. Don't forget that the system is made up of humans. Which social worker

I'm a former foster-parent, so have interacted with my local CWS system pretty heavily. Don't forget that the system is made up of humans. Which social worker investigates (and how well socialized the parent is) can make a huge difference in when an intervention happens, and what the intervention is. We had child that was removed on the very first report to CWS, after the social worker interviewed the mother and was not satisfied. We also had a child that was removed only after the 17th report, made by a total of about half a dozen people (including every single preschool teacher), with all the reports being consistent with each other. The child was only removed because the mother was smoking meth when the CWS worker showed up. The social worker had shown up several times previously, but was satisfied after interviewing the mother.