Purpose <p>While federal guidelines prioritize family reunification as a goal for youth in foster care, there are exceptions where other permanency outcomes are the case goal. Case goals guide service planning and establish trajectories towards permanency outcomes. However, little is known about factors associated with whether, and under what circumstances, reunification is determined as the case goal by child protective service (CPS) professionals. We hypothesize that case goal determinations are influenced by maltreatment type and the occurrence of abuse specifically perpetrated by a parent/primary caregiver (caregiver abuse) versus someone else.</p> Methods <p>A series of logistic regressions was conducted to investigate these relationships using data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Database and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System FY 2018.</p> Results <p>Child sexual abuse (<i>AOR</i> = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.63–0.73) and physical abuse (<i>AOR</i> = 0.92, 95% CI = 0.88–0.96), were associated with a reduced likelihood of reunification as a case goal, and this was further diminished in cases of caregiver sexual abuse (<i>AOR</i> = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.54–0.85). Children’s race, ethnicity, and prior child welfare system involvement also played a contributing role.</p> Conclusions <p>CPS professionals can benefit from validated measures developed to assess sexual abuse recidivism risk specifically among sexually abusive caregivers. Further study on factors that may potentially influence decisions about whether reunification or other permanency outcomes are determined as the case goal following caregiver sexual abuse is encouraged. Understanding these relationships will help ensure decisions made by CPS professionals are in the best interests of the children they serve.</p>