Child Abuse Within Alabama and Georgia

1
Child Abuse Within Alabama and Georgia

• An in-depth study of child abuse statistics,
  preventive/protective organizations, and internal
  state child abuse conflicts.

2
Defining Child Abuse

• United States Code Collection Title 42, Chapter
  67 states
• Child abuse/neglect is any recent act or failure
  to act on the part of a parent or caretaker,
  which results in death, serious physical or
  emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation or
• An act or failure to act that presents imminent
  risk or serious harm to a minor.

3
National Child Abuse Statistics
4
Specific Areas of Concern

• State run organizations What system does each
  state implement in dealing with child abuse
• Protection/prevention agencies and their role in
  state programs
• Specific problems that each state has to deal
  with in the area of child abuse

5
Alabama and Child Abuse
6
Alabama Department of Human Resources

• Child Abuse/Neglect Administration
• Manages and conducts administrative records and
  reviews of persons involved in an abusive
  incident
• Keeps records of every accusation, conviction and
  punishment given when abuse is reported and taken
  to court

• Child Protective/Central Registry on Child Abuse
• Provides therapy for children and case follow up
• Administers the placement of children in state
  homes
• Applies for and monitors grants given to child
  protect services
• Aids in child protection/prevention and state
  policy developments.

7
Problems within the Child Protective and Central
Registry on Child Abuse

• 1. State allotted funds allow for extensive
  therapy and counseling
• Fact Alabama allows case follow up and
  counseling services for 1-3 years after abusive
  incident occurs. Studies prove that emotional and
  mental effects of abuse can take decades to
  surface. Most of the common effects (withdrawal,
  denial) do not even occur until 4-6 years after
  the abuse occurs.
• 2. Licensed therapists and qualified employees
  are allowed to determine when children can be
  released from weekly/monthly therapy session.
• Fact In 1997, 58 of patients seen by the
  therapists in this organization were given
  clearance from all counseling sessions after only
  8 months.
• 3. Case involvement and follow ups Cases will
  be investigated and kept on file for at least 10
  years prior to incident.
• Fact During the past 3 years, 46 of child
  fatalities that occurred due to some form of
  abuse, had current or prior contact with state
  child protective services.

8
Child Fatality Agencies in Alabama

• The Alabama Child Death Review System was
  established in 1997 to investigate
  suspicious/wrongful child deaths.
• This agency is responsible for reporting exact
  causes (who and/or what) of wrongful child deaths
  and implore the aid of other state agencies to
  combat this problem.

• Child Death Review Teams are a relatively new
  sub-division of the Alabama Child Death Review
  System.
• The review teams are responsible for taking the
  information supplied by the ACDRS and
  continuously search for preventive measures.
  (physical/behavioral signs to look for, parental
  behavior, etc)

9
The Deadly Facts of Alabama Child Abuse

• In Alabama, on average, 3 children die per day
  due to some form of abuse or neglect.
• 85 of the cases involve children under the age
  of 5
• 45 of the cases involved children under the age
  of 1
• Nationally, Alabama is ranked 8 of states that
  have children die due to abuse/ neglect.

10
So What Is Alabama Doing To Combat These Pressing
Child Abuse Issues???
11
Preventive and Protective Services

• As mentioned before, problems in this category
  fall mainly under The Alabama Child Protective
  and Central Registry on Child Abuse. What is
  currently being done is the instillation of
  progressive new programs that allow private,
  child advocacy centers to aid state funded
  institutions. By doing so, this allows more
  volunteers, time and money to be spent on
  accomplishing the goals of state institutions.
  These goals include more licensed therapists to
  provide counseling services for extended amounts
  of time, as well as intensive and longer case
  follow ups to aid in prevention and protection.

12
Dealing with Abusive Deaths

• The Alabama Child Death Review Teams are now
  branching out into counties throughout the state.
  As of March 24, 2000, 28 counties have review
  teams, with 10 more counties in the process of
  establishing teams.
• These teams are working to open the lines of
  communication with local health officials and the
  communities in an effort to investigate child
  abuse deaths. In return, these teams will
  educate the public on the severity of this
  problem.

13
In Review

• Alabama is like many other states in the nation
  in that it is attempting to deal with child abuse
  problems effectively. Unfortunately there is no
  progressive legislation or agency that has
  stopped abuse and neglect all together. However,
  Alabama does have ever-evolving ideas and a
  system that is growing and changing in an effort
  to protect its children.

14
Georgia and Child Abuse
15
Organizations in Place

• The Georgia Department of Human Resources has one
  agency in place that deals with abuse and
  neglect.
• The Department of Family and Children Services
  serves as an all-encompassing organization that
  records and investigates abusive situations,
  provides counseling for victims, and catalogs
  child deaths due to abuse.

16
Protective/Preventive Services

• The Georgia Department of Family and Children
  Services had more than 70,000 reports of abuse
  filed in 1999.
• This department is constantly facing case
  overloads, insufficient staffing, not enough
  counselors and therapists, and lack of funding.
• All of these problems ultimately contribute to
  the three major areas of child abuse concern
  within Georgia neglect, sexual abuse, and
  government funding.

17
Neglect in Georgia

• Neglect by definition means children that are
  inadequately supervised, poorly clothed, poorly
  housed, do not receive health care and/ or are
  not properly fed.
• Often one of the hardest forms of abuse to
  identify, neglect has risen 31 from 1999 2000.
• In 2000 alone there were 23,703 cases of neglect
  investigated, filed and taken to court.

18
Sexual Abuse In Georgia

• As defined by the National Clearinghouse on Child
  Abuse and Neglect Information, sexual abuse
  includes, use, persuasion, or coercion of any
  child to engage in, or assist any other person to
  engage in, any sexually explicit conduct.. or
  rape, and in cases of caretaker or inter-family
  relationships, statutory rape, molestation,
  prostitution, or other form of sexual
  exploitation of children, or incest with
  children.
• In 1999, 45 children in Georgia died from sexual
  abuse. The majority of these children were under
  the age of 12.
• A common assumption is that girls are the only
  ones that are sexually abused. In 1999, 47 of
  sexually abused children were boys under the age
  of 11.

19
Sexual AbuseThe ever-increasing statistic
20
1999 Total Tax Money Spent on Child Abuse

• Child
  Child Child Mental Child
• Total Child Abuse Neglect Sexual
  Physical Abuse / Neglect Fatal
  Medical Spending 4,400
  12,600 200 200
  Mental Health
  50,800 42,800 98,800
  100
• Victim Work/School Loss 18,500
  54,900 10,900 11,000
• Public Programs 9,600
  31,000 81,300 10
• Property Damage -
  400 -
  10
• Total Monetary
  83,300 141,700 191,200
  11,320 Quality of Life
  794,200 920,300 840,600
  27,900
• Total Comprehensive 877,500
  1,062,000 1,031,800 39,220
• The Grand Total 3,010,520
• While this may seem like a large amount spent,
  with increasing child abuse statistics, more
  money is needed to provide efficient protective
  and preventive services.

21
Georgias Solutions

• First, Georgia has addressed conflicts within
  protective and preventive services.
• The state now allows outside institutions to aid
  in abuse services. Prevent Child Abuse Georgia,
  a non-profit organization, has taken over a large
  amount of prevention work that used to be a
  responsibility of the Dept. Of Human Resources.
  This agency provides parent programs, childrens
  programs, community involvement, strategic
  partnership, professional education and advocacy.
  
• The Medical College of Georgia also offers
  services to relieve the understaffed DHR. The
  college offers a large staff of licensed
  therapists, medical attention, and psychologists
  that are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• These organizations, along with several others,
  have worked in conjunction with the DHR to cut
  down work overloads, inadequate staffing, and
  lack of medical needs. These agencies also work
  at minimal-to-no costs in an effort to work with
  the limited DHR funding.

22
Combating Abuse and Neglect

• In October 1999, changes were made within the
  Georgia Child Protective Services Systems
  By-laws. These changes dealt with defining the
  severity of child abuse neglect.

• The changes made were include
• 1.Child safety over preservation
• 2.Structured decision making
• 3.Attention to high risk cases

23
The Amendments

• Child safety over preservation- This amendment
  states that the judicial system and the DHR would
  no longer emphasize keeping a blood-related
  family together at all costs. This allows
  Georgia officials to take more aggressive strides
  when taking away parental rights for abuse and
  neglect.
• Structured Decision Making Historically, only
  the specific case worker and their supervisor
  were allowed to make decisions regarding an
  abuse/neglect case. The new amendment states
  that all case workers are permitted to
  investigate and/or re-open a case.
• Attention to High Risk Cases- Cases are now rated
  as high, medium and low according to the amount
  of risk that is involved for the child. This
  allows case workers to determine what they are
  dealing with and what avenues need to be
  explored. Also, with this new system comes
  increased contact with Child Protect Services.
  The higher the rate a family or case is given,
  the more contact it has with child services.
  Since October when these amendments were made,
  high risk family visits have tripled.

24
Stopping Sexual Abuse

• The first progressive step Georgia has taken is
  the Sex Offender Registry. This is a program
  developed by child protect services and the
  Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and has
  been implemented state wide.
• What this program entails
• -When a person is convicted of a sexual
  crime, the GBI collects information including
  name, fingerprints, photos, physical description,
  places of employment and case status. This
  conviction and information is kept on-file
  permanently.
• -The GBI and child protect services then are
  allowed, by law, to provide this information to
  the community. Neighborhoods, community centers,
  churches, and area businesses are all notified
  of the above information concerning the offender.
  (All information is available to the public
  except for any information concerning the victim)
• This labels a sex offender for life. Every time
  this person moves to a new location or applies
  for a job, the information of being a convicted
  sexual offender will arise. This is Georgias
  way of protecting its citizens, especially
  children.

25
Educating

• Georgia state officials, child protect services,
  and school boards across the state have joined
  together to present effective programs regarding
  physical, sexual and emotional abuse, as well as
  neglect.
• These programs include video tapes, work books
  and group discussions. This is all an effort to
  educate young people on the warning signs of
  abuse, who to turn to for help, and ways to
  recover.

26
Showing Child Abuse Services the Money!

• As previously mentioned, Georgia allotted
  3,010,520 in 1999 for child abuse incidents and
  victims. However, since statistically the amount
  of abused children has risen, the monetary
  compensation must also rise.
• State run institutions are now imploring the
  monetary aid of private child advocacy
  institutions. Over 1,000 of these organizations
  exist within Georgia and all have contributed
  monetary support as well as program support.
• Coastal Childrens Advocacy Center of Savannah
  raised more than 25,000 dollars in child protect
  revenue.

27
In Review..

• It is a geographical fact that Alabama and
  Georgia are closely related. It would seem to be
  a fair assumption that these states would have
  similar programs and problems when it comes to
  child abuse. This presentation has proven that
  to be true and false.
• Both states share a common organization called
  the Department of Human Resources. Each of these
  departments have subdivisions within them that
  deal with child abuse. Both Alabama and Georgia
  have internal conflicts within their
  protective/preventive services. However, there
  are differences when looking at each state in
  depth.

28
In Review

• Alabama must concentrate on lack of case follow
  up and counseling services in preventive and
  protective agencies. This state must also deal
  with an ever-increasing child abuse death rate.
• Georgia is more concerned with case overloads,
  insufficient staffing, and lack of funding. This
  state must also handle rising neglect and sexual
  abuse statistics and program funding.

29
THE BIG CONCLUSION!

• The end result of this study was that each state
  is working towards establishing effective child
  protective services. It is not clear which state
  is in better shape or has more figured out when
  it comes to preventing child abuse, seeing as
  though they deal with different problems. What is
  obvious is that each state puts child abuse and
  neglect as a top concern and are continuously
  working to alleviate this growing problem.