Kids at risk despite drop in reports of child abuse
Teachers, day cares usually make most calls
Reports of child abuse dropped by about 50% during the first two weeks after Wisconsin schools closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the state Department of Children and Families.
But that doesn’t mean fewer kids are at risk as families shelter in place to stop the spread of the virus. On the contrary: As families suffer more stress, the people required to report suspected abuse, such as teachers, have less contact with children who may need help.
“Child abuse tends to go up when
people are under more stress,” said Susan Conwell, executive director of the Milwaukee child advocacy organization Kids Matter. “More economic stress is part of that, and people being stuck at home. Mental health is part of the problem, and that doesn’t get easier. Alcohol abuse and drug abuse don’t just magically disappear.”
With abuse likely rising and reporting down in the wake of the pandemic, experts are looking for new ways to help families, encouraging friends and neighbors to be vigilant and bracing for a flood of kids in need when life returns to some semblance of normal.
Abuse calls dropped when schools closed
Calls reporting child abuse and neglect declined precipitously the week schools closed, according to statistics provided by the state Department of Children and Families.
This year, the department received 977 calls that week, down from 1,882 the previous week and 1,759 during the same week last year. During the first week of the stay-at-home order, calls plunged from 1,504 last year to 785 this year.
Much of the drop can be attributed to fewer calls from educational personnel, who are required by law to call if they suspect a child is being harmed. In the third week of March 2019, child protective services received 475 calls from educators. This year, the number was 70. A week later, the numbers dropped off again, from 334 to 33.
The numbers haven’t come anywhere close to last year’s in the weeks since.
That’s because fewer mandated reporters — those required to report suspected abuse and neglect — have had less in-person contact with children as a result of the coronavirus crisis, according to Emilie Amundson, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. In addition to teachers, that group includes child care providers, police and social workers.
“Everybody was just sort of grappling with what does this mean for all these different sectors and how do we get the workforce in place to do the important work that we do?” she said. “How do we support staff so they can continue to do this critical work?”
She and other experts expect what’s happening now is similar to what researchers found in the wake of the 2008 recession: An increased risk of child abuse.
At Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, “we saw the numbers and the severity increase after the 2008 recession,” said Angela Rabbit, a physician who serves as program director for the child abuse pediatrics fellowship there.
Circumstances are arguably worse now since financial stress has been combined with social isolation, resulting in fewer people available to offer help to struggling parents, she said.
“We’re not seeing the increase in maltreatment we might expect because no one is there to point it out,” Rabbitt said.
That’s cause for concern to Teresa Huizar, executive director of the Washington, D.C.–based National Children’s Alliance.
“If you have a fragile family that might have been holding it together, but now maybe they’ve lost their job, they’re worrying about housing, they haven’t yet gotten their stimulus payment, their unemployment, you can just see the mounting pressures on those families,” she said. “If we don’t get those people some help, that pressure cooker is going to explode and can result in harm to kids.”
Although the data lags behind the reality on the ground, some troubling reports have begun to emerge nationwide, she said. For example, for the first time in history, 50% of hotline calls to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, are coming from minors reporting they have been abused — not from caregivers or other adults.
“Older kids themselves or people living in the home who may not be the offender themselves are reaching out for help,” she said. “What we need to be thinking about is: How do we get help to those people where they are?”
A pivot to prevention
At the Marshfield Child Advocacy Center, the staff pivoted to prevention within a week of the stay-athome order, said director Kristen Iniguez. They recognized that if parents can’t meet their family’s basic needs, stress can cause them to respond to kids in unhealthy ways.
“To support those basic needs is to ideally prevent child abuse, emotional abuse and neglect of children in this lockdown situation,” said Iniguez, a physician.
As a result, the center teamed up with other service providers. For example, school districts are providing lunches for families to pick up. For those without transportation, the center’s staffers are dropping off the food. They are also delivering groceries and connecting families with emergency financial support to help with rent, electricity and cellphone bills.
Partnerships between the public and private sectors and among nonprofits also have improved in the Milwaukee area, according to Amundson.
“There’s been just absolute diligence and lockstep in very tactically pushing out grant money around emergency child care, food drives for food-insecure families, PPE for essential workers in child care and child welfare,” she said.
Every family that provides foster care or houses young relatives through the state’s kinship care program also is receiving a payment of $300 via a federal COVID-19 relief grant, she said.
Checking in virtually
In some cases, social workers still need to visit the homes of their clients, Amundson said. When they do, they are taking extra precautions to prevent spreading the virus, such as visiting only one home per trip, using protective equipment and showering at home before and after each contact, she said.
Some caseworkers have shifted to online contacts, she said. Children and parents who need counseling are now getting it via video.
Teachers, who are no longer seeing children in classrooms, are receiving additional training about how to keep their students safe, according to Amundson. For example, if a child who has always been engaged in lessons isn’t showing the same enthusiasm online or if a child hasn’t shown up for virtual learning at all, they may need help.
Teachers should be checking in with students about their feelings, their anxieties and whether they’re getting enough sleep, she said. They also need to talk directly with parents, not only about their kids but also about the stresses of parenting.
“We need to acknowledge that this is really hard on parents, even if you didn’t have struggles pre-COVID,” said Amundson, whose husband is a teacher.
Neighbors and family members also should be reaching out to parents, experts agree.
“You can still pick up the phone if a family member has been working on sobriety. Offer support, talk to the kids, tell them a joke,” Conwell suggested. “If you know people who were under stress before, they’re under more stress now. Positive outreach and engagement can make a big difference.”
Bracing for an onslaught
After the initial two-week drop in child abuse reports to the state, calls ticked up a bit, coming closer to the levels normally seen during school breaks in the summer, Amundson said.
“While we’ve seen precipitous declines in reporting abuse and neglect by some of our mandated reporters, we have not seen any noticeable decrease in reports from friends, relatives and neighbors,” she said. “For me, that’s a little piece of hope in all this.”
Still, she and others who serve vulnerable children are bracing for an onslaught of kids in crisis once the state’s stay-at-home order is lifted.
“This is all coming due to us at some point,” said Huizar of the National Children’s Alliance. “It’s not as though those who were abusing children before are suddenly going to stop. We should expect and plan for a tsunami of sorrow and the need for a response.”
At Children’s Hospital, medical providers are talking about the potential for holding additional clinic hours, according to Rabbitt.
Staffers at the Marshfield Clinic are doing the same. They also want to increase their contacts with families in need, knowing their problems won’t suddenly disappear as schools and businesses start to reopen.
“I honestly foresee that this is going to be a longhaul process,” Iniguez said. “Even if we do open up in June or July, things are not going to go back to normal right away. They may never go back to normal.”
Amundson hopes some things may change for the better. By the time the coronavirus crisis is over, she said, perhaps her agency will be viewed as a resource for families rather than a source of fear.
“We’re in the midst of a real sea change,” she said. “We have an opportunity through COVID … to de-stigmatize what Child Protective Services has been in the past and make it a place where people can go to get the help they need.”