By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Wood County saw a dip in child abuse and neglect reports last year – more likely due to COVID than a decrease in cases.
“I do not believe COVID cured child abuse,” Wood County Job and Family Services Director Dave Wigent said this morning during a report to the county commissioners.
The Children’s Services unit investigated 795 abuse and neglect reports in 2020, compared to 811 the previous year.
The primary reason for the decrease is most likely because the people who are required by law to report child abuse and neglect did not have access to children much of last year. Teachers and school staffs didn’t see children in person for months at a time, park and recreation programs were limited, churches were online.
The early months of COVID showed the difference in stats. In April of 2020, 49 child abuse and neglect reports were logged in the county, compared to 79 the year before. In May of last year, there were 60 reports filed, compared to 83 the previous year.
The pandemic did not keep Children’s Services staff from making face-to-face contact with children and their families. Home visits were not conducted over Zoom.
“We never stopped going out and doing all of that when the world shut down,” said Brandy Laux, the Children’s Services assessment supervisor.
“Child abuse investigators are front line responders,” despite the state not providing PPE or early vaccinations for such workers, Wigent said.
In normal years, child neglect reports come from law enforcement, medical professionals, school staffs, and concerned neighbors. The calls range from reports of a child not being dressed appropriately for the weather, living in unsanitary conditions, not being fed properly, not getting proper medical care, and not being able to eat because of poor dental health.
“We get calls from everybody,” Wigent said, including strangers reporting about “toddlers in diapers wandering down the street.”
Wigent told the county commissioners that child abuse and neglect numbers often reflect other crises. When opioid cases jumped in the county a few years ago so did child neglect. Initially, he thought the number of abuse cases would rise – but it was neglect cases that skyrocketed.
“When you spend a lot of time on the couch, or spend a lot of time chasing drugs, you’re neglecting your children,” he said.
Laux explained that the agency works with families to keep them unified if possible. Meetings are held between families, caseworkers and service providers, she said.
“We need to get the family to understand what our concerns are,” Laux said.
Very few cases actually go to court, Wigent said. Of the 795 cases investigated last year, about 100 went to court to remove children from homes.
“We try to keep kids in the home as much as we can, and divert kids away from the legal system,” Wigent said.
Children’s Services must decide which conditions are unsafe – and which are just not up to normal standards. An unclean home is not in itself a reason to remove children from their parents, Laux explained.
“That is not our normal practice,” Wigent said.
Poverty is not an indicator of abuse or neglect, Laux said.
“Some people think if you’re poor then you neglect your children,” she said. “Poverty is not neglect. It can turn into that” but it is not necessarily a sign of poor treatment of children.
In normal years, Wood County Children’s Services tries to alert local residents to the number of child abuse and neglect cases by planting pinwheels to represent each child. The last two years that hasn’t been possible due to the pandemic – but Laux said plans are to continue the effort next year.
