Child-abuse agencies stretched by volume of cases, lack of foster homes

While National Child Abuse Prevention Month began Friday, the issue is a year-round concern for people such as Jeff Schmitt.

Schmitt, a forensic interviewer at Beacon Health Center, is among a team of interdisciplinary professionals tasked with investigating abuse and neglect cases in a region that encompasses Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Perry and Scott counties, plus five other counties in the Missouri Bootheel.

Although Schmitt described his workdays as being unpredictable, it isn't unusual for him to interview 11 or more children a day who have been identified as potential victims of physical or sexual abuse.

"I would love to just sit here and do nothing and be bored out of my mind," he said, but that's not his daily reality.

Nor is it reality for the legions of minors who pass through his office on the way to foster homes or other forms of protective custody.

So far in 2016, Beacon had helped investigate 167 abuse cases by Friday afternoon. In 2015, the number of cases was 555, down from 587 cases the previous year.

Statewide, the most recent information from the St. Louis-based Washington University Center for Violence and Injury Prevention put child-maltreatment cases at 51.2 per 1,000 children in Missouri in 2012. That placed the state 13th in the nation for maltreatment and neglect cases.

Just from his own experiences interviewing victims, Schmitt said the most common forms of abuse he encounters are the most difficult to listen to day after day.

"Mostly, it is sexual assault and physical abuse," he said. "Unfortunately, that has increased this year."

While some cases are reported using the Missouri Department of Social Services' Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline at (800) 392-3738, others are referred to Beacon through police, juvenile authorities or the Department of Children's Services.

Crissy Mayberry, executive director of the not-for-profit Hope Children's Home in Jackson, takes in 10 to 12 such children at any given time.

"Our goal is to give them a safe place after the trauma they've been through," she said.

That can include mental and physical evaluations to clothing and group therapy. The hope is the children can be reunited with family members eventually. But when that isn't possible, they might be put up for adoption or have individual case plans for when they age out of foster care.

That's when foster care is available, of course.

In the judicial district including Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Perry counties, Mayberry said 348 children are in protective custody.

There are only 44 licensed foster homes, however, to accommodate them within the district. That means many must be transported elsewhere, which takes them not only from their homes, but from their communities as well.

"There are many more than that who aren't removed from their homes," she said.

The most common reason she has seen for children being taken from parents is drug abuse, which not only can cause an unsafe home environment, but a chaotic one.

"We just want to promote normalcy for these kids because of all they've been through and give them the things other kids take for granted," she said.

ljones@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652

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What to do

If you think a child is being abused or neglected and wish to report it, MissouriÂ’s Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline number is (800) 392-3738 for in-state calls and (573) 751-3448 from out of state. This information will be needed during a call:

• Name of the child
• Name of the parent(s)
• Name of the alleged abuser
• Whereabouts of the child
• If the child is in a life-threatening situation
• How you know about the abuse or neglect
• Whether you have seen the abuse or neglect
• Who else has seen the abuse or neglect

Source: Missouri Department of Social Services