The long-term consequences of child abuse are clear. According to ChildWelfare.gov, “Childhood maltreatment can be linked to later physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences as well as costs to society as a whole.”
Because of the moral implications of child abuse as well as the long-term societal costs, the Legislature has an obligation to fully fund the state’s End Harm Line, which is operated by the Department of Children, Youth and Families and is used by a variety of professionals to report suspicions of abuse.
Instead, the End Harm Line too often serves as a roadblock to protecting endangered children. As a recent article from Columbian reporter Wyatt Stayner detailed, callers to the hotline often find themselves on hold when they should be tending to a traumatized child or teaching their class or seeing patients. Medical professionals, school employees and social workers are required by law to report suspicions of abuse, but the state all too often is not listening.
The hotline, a network of six regional call centers and one central line, receives about 125,000 calls a year from throughout Washington. During peak hours, wait times are frequently more than 30 minutes and can last for more than an hour. That leads to abandoned calls, with public records showing that as many as 30 percent of calls are dropped.
Washington has demonstrated interest in identifying and addressing physical and sexual abuse of minors. But setting up a hotline and requiring that suspicions be reported are not enough. The End Harm Line has about 105 full-time equivalent employees, and the Department of Children, Youth and Families is asking the Legislature for an additional $281,000 next year to create an online portal for the filing of reports.
That might or might not be a good idea. As with the hotline, an online portal would require adequate staffing and attention. In 2015, Colorado set up an email account to report child abuse; the account went unchecked for four years.
Skeptics in the Washington Legislature question whether “throwing money” at the problem is the proper approach. That is a frequent mantra used by those who would rather ignore a problem and hope that it goes away — or that nobody notices.
If increased funding for the End Harm Line is not the answer, we are open to suggestions. But until some adequate proposals are presented, it appears that increased staffing is the best approach.
“Oftentimes, we ask our agencies to do a lot with limited resources,” state Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, told The Columbian, adding that this situation warrants additional resources.
Protecting children should not be viewed as an opportunity for the state to scrimp and save. It should be viewed as an investment that reduces costs in the long run, as abused children are more likely to suffer from inattentiveness in school and long-term health issues, in addition to winding up in the criminal justice system. A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using 2015 data, estimated the annual nationwide cost of nonfatal child maltreatment to be $428 billion per year — and that does not include cases that are undiagnosed.
Lawmakers have a duty to demonstrate that child abuse will not be tolerated in Washington and that state leaders are doing everything in their power to identify it and prevent it. That begins by giving those who care for children the resources they require when they call for help.
