A new national study says that chil­dren dying from abuse and neglect has seen a 35 per­cent increase since 2001. 1760 chil­dren died of abuse or neglect in 2007.

The report from the Every Child Mat­ters Edu­ca­tion Fund says that states that have a strong child safety net see less deaths from abuse and neglect.

From the Every Child Mat­ters web­site, we find out more about the study from this press release.

A report released today shows that 10,440 chil­dren in the U.S. are known to have died from abuse and neglect between 2001 and 2007, but experts say the real num­ber may be as much as 50 per­cent higher. The dif­fer­ence is due to vary­ing def­i­n­i­tions of abuse and neglect in the states, as well as incon­sis­tent record-keeping and data col­lec­tion method­olo­gies. Child pro­tec­tion lead­ers say the sit­u­a­tion makes it impos­si­ble to pro­vide an accu­rate assess­ment of abuse and neglect of chil­dren in America.

The report from the Every Child Mat­ters Edu­ca­tion Fund shows that more than 1,760 U.S. chil­dren are doc­u­mented to have died from abuse or neglect in 2007 – a 35 per­cent increase since 2001. It says that the com­bi­na­tion of mil­lions of vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and inad­e­quate resources leaves states stretched too thin to pro­tect all chil­dren who need it.

“It’s heart-wrenching that each day in Amer­ica, five chil­dren will die from abuse and neglect, but what’s worse is that the real num­ber is even larger,” said Michael Petit, pres­i­dent of Every Child Mat­ters Edu­ca­tion Fund. “Child abuse and neglect are national prob­lems that require national solu­tions. That means fed­eral law­mak­ers must work with states to address what causes it, be more con­sis­tent in how data about it are shared, and increase sup­port for the agen­cies that work to stop it.”

Today’s report serves as a wake-up call for fed­eral law­mak­ers. National lead­ers in child pro­tec­tion, law enforce­ment, edu­ca­tors, pol­icy mak­ers and oth­ers are gath­er­ing in Wash­ing­ton, DC, today to kick off two days of inten­sive dis­cus­sions among diverse orga­ni­za­tions to iden­tify the poli­cies and resources needed to reduce deaths from child abuse and neglect. Con­gress must soon take up work to reau­tho­rize the Child Abuse Pre­ven­tion and Treat­ment Act, or CAPTA, which pro­vides fed­eral fund­ing to states to address child abuse and neglect.

The report looks at the most recent state data made avail­able by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. It includes infor­ma­tion col­lected through the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data Sys­tem, which is sup­ported by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices’ Admin­is­tra­tion for Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies. It also includes data col­lected by the U.S. Cen­sus Bureau. High­lights show:

Child deaths attrib­uted to abuse or neglect vary sig­nif­i­cantly by state.
Ken­tucky had the high­est rate of death due to child abuse and neglect in 2007 – 41 deaths, or a rate of 4.09 per 100,000 chil­dren in the state. Other states top­ping the list include South Dakota (4.08), Florida (3.79), Nebraska (3.59) and Mis­souri (3.51). States with the low­est rate of child death from abuse or neglect in 2007 are Delaware Rhode Island, Idaho, Maine and Montana.

“About half of all chil­dren who die from abuse and neglect were pre­vi­ously brought to the atten­tion of author­i­ties – either by another fam­ily mem­ber, a teacher, physi­cian, neigh­bor or some­one else who cared about their safety and well-being,” said Teresa Huizar, exec­u­tive direc­tor, National Children’s Alliance. “But case work­ers are rou­tinely stretched too thin, and fund­ing lev­els are too low. The result is often too lit­tle action that is taken too late, and kids die as a result.”

There is nearly a 13-fold dif­fer­ence in the amount that states spend per per­son to address abuse and neglect.
While there is no fund­ing level or for­mula that guar­an­tees a reduc­tion in child deaths, states that invest in a strong social safety net for chil­dren – includ­ing health, social ser­vices, edu­ca­tion, plus child pro­tec­tion – expe­ri­ence fewer child abuse/neglect deaths, on aver­age. Experts sug­gest that this is because fewer fam­i­lies expe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ties in the first place, and that if child abuse does occur, case work­ers can inves­ti­gate more cases more thor­oughly, thus pro­tect­ing more chil­dren from poten­tial harm.

The report finds that Rhode Island spends the most per capita – spend­ing $181.34 per per­son to pro­tect chil­dren. Other states that make sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments in com­par­i­son with their coun­ter­parts include Penn­syl­va­nia ($137.89), Alaska ($129.02), Ver­mont ($126.31), and Cal­i­for­nia ($121.16). The five states spend­ing the low­est amount on child pro­tec­tion per per­son include South Car­olina ($14.72), Mis­sis­sippi ($28.82), Maine ($31.88), Nevada ($34.02) and Arkansas ($35.99).

“We need a big­ger invest­ment in case work­ers, whether it is num­ber of staff or addi­tional train­ing,” said Rebecca Myers, L.S.W., direc­tor, exter­nal rela­tions at the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Social Work­ers. “Child pro­tec­tion work­ers are often the first line of defense in pro­tect­ing chil­dren liv­ing in high-risk sit­u­a­tions, but case­loads in some juris­dic­tions are as high as 60 or more, even though national stan­dards rec­om­mend 12 or fewer cases per worker.”

Poverty is closely asso­ci­ated with child abuse and neglect.
Experts say stop­ping deaths due to child abuse and neglect requires address­ing poverty, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing chal­leng­ing eco­nomic times. While no level of house­hold income or edu­ca­tional level makes a fam­ily immune to this issue, a child liv­ing in poverty is 22 times more likely to be abused than chil­dren liv­ing in fam­i­lies with an annual income of $30,000 or more.

Recent Cen­sus fig­ures show that states with the high­est lev­els of chil­dren liv­ing in poverty are Ari­zona (26%), New Mex­ico (26%), Ken­tucky (24%), Alabama (24%) and Mis­sis­sippi (24%). States with the low­est lev­els of child poverty are New Hamp­shire (9%), Utah (9%), Alaska (10%), Ver­mont (10%), Mary­land (10%) and Con­necti­cut (10%).

Celebri­ties and oth­ers join in sup­port.
Stars from Law & Order: Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit, took to Capi­tol Hill today to help raise aware­ness. The pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion show chron­i­cles the New York Police Depart­ment team that inves­ti­gates sex­u­ally based crimes, includ­ing those com­mit­ted against chil­dren. Actors Tamara Tunie (med­ical exam­iner Melinda Warner) and B.D. Wong (psy­chi­a­trist George Huang) joined in speak­ing out on the impor­tance of invest­ing in the pro­tec­tion of children.

Orga­ni­za­tions sup­port­ing the sum­mit this week include the Amer­i­can Pro­fes­sional Soci­ety on the Abuse of Chil­dren, Asso­ci­a­tion of Mater­nal and Child Health Pro­grams, Every Child Mat­ters Edu­ca­tion Fund, National Asso­ci­a­tion of Social Work­ers, National Cen­ter on Child Death Review and National Children’s Alliance.

The dis­cus­sion of children’s issues in Wash­ing­ton this week comes exactly 100 years after Pres­i­dent Theodore Roo­sevelt held the first-ever White House sum­mit on children’s issues.

“A cen­tury after the first White House sum­mit on children’s issues in Amer­ica, we are faced with more chil­dren dying from abuse and neglect in the United States than in any other indus­tri­al­ized nation,” said Michael Fraser, Ph.D., chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, Asso­ci­a­tion of Mater­nal and Child Health Pro­grams. “The U.S. child abuse death rate is among the high­est in the world – three times higher than that of Canada, and 11 times higher than that of Italy. We need lead­ers who will step up for chil­dren and make con­certed efforts to turn these num­bers around with our nation’s state and local mater­nal and child health professionals.”

Read the full report, learn more about the issue or send an email to elected offi­cials here

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The Every Child Mat­ters Edu­ca­tion Fund is a 501©(3) non-profit, non-partisan orga­ni­za­tion work­ing to make chil­dren, youth and fam­i­lies a national polit­i­cal pri­or­ity. We pro­mote the adop­tion of smart poli­cies for chil­dren and youth, includ­ing: ensur­ing that chil­dren have access to afford­able, com­pre­hen­sive health care ser­vices; expand­ing early-care and learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and after-school pro­grams; pre­vent­ing vio­lence against chil­dren in their homes and com­mu­ni­ties; alle­vi­at­ing child poverty; and address­ing the spe­cial needs of chil­dren with par­ents in prison.

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