DHS Releases Annual Report on Child Abuse & Neglect

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released its most recent annual report on Child Maltreatment.  This one covers federal fiscal year 2019.  The good news is that complaints to child protective services dropped from the 2018 report.  The federal fiscal year ended in September 2019, so the pandemic did not affect the report.  Most of the reports were for neglect.  Almost half of the reports were screened out, and more than half of the remaining cases were unsubstantiated.  Unfortunately, there still were a large number of substantiated cases, including fatalities.  A depressingly large number of children were reported with caregivers suffering from drug or alcohol abuse. If you don't have time to read all 289 pages of the original report, the Child Welfare League of America has a short summary on its website.