Trinity Mount Ministries

Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts

Monday, August 21, 2023

Mott Poll Report - Overuse of devices and social media top parent concerns




Overuse of devices and social media top parent concerns

Poll Report

The C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health asked a national sample of parents to rate their level of concern about a variety of health topics. Parents rated each topic as a big problem, somewhat of a problem, or not a problem for children and teens in the United States. The leading concerns rated by parents as a big problem for children and teens are presented below.

2023 Top 10 Child Health Concerns for Parents:

Overuse of devices/screen time (67%)Social media (66%)Internet safety (62%)Depression/suicide (57%)Bullying (53%)Stress/anxiety (52%)Unhealthy diet (52%)Costs of healthcare/health insurance (50%)School violence (49%)Smoking/vaping (48%)

Falling just outside the Top 10 are obesity (48%), guns/gun injuries (47%), lack of mental health services (47%), poverty (45%), drinking/using drugs (44%), child abuse/neglect (42%), followed by unequal access to health care (35%), parental stress (35%), inaccurate/misleading health information (31%), teen pregnancy/sexual activity (31%), discrimination (31%), unsafe neighborhoods (30%), gay/gender issues (LGBTQ) (29%), and health risks from polluted water and air (23%). At the bottom of the list are safety of vaccines (16%), over-involved parents/parents doing too much (13%) and COVID (12%).

Several issues are viewed as a big problem by a higher proportion of parents in low-income (<$50,000) households; these include depression/suicide, bullying, school violence, unsafe neighborhoods, drinking/drugs, smoking/vaping, teen pregnancy/sexual activity, child abuse/neglect, parental stress, discrimination, COVID, and health risks from pollution. In contrast, overuse of devices and social media are viewed as big problems by a higher proportion of parents in middle- ($50,000-$99,999) and high-income (≥$100,000) households. Parents across income groups have similar ratings for unhealthy diet, obesity, costs of healthcare, and lack of mental health services.

HighlightsTop parental concerns center on children’s and teens’ use of devices and social media.Over half of parents rate mental health issues as a big problem.Parents in low-income households rate more issues as a big problem for children and teens.

Implications

Since 2007, the Mott Poll has released periodic reports on parents’ level of concern about a variety of health-related issues for US children and teens. The top issues centered around the role of social media and the internet in children’s lives, with two-thirds of parents expressing concerns about children’s increased use of social media, as well as overall screen time. These topics became more prominent during the pandemic, and this report shows that parent concerns have not faded. As shown in prior Mott Poll Reports, children are using social media at younger ages, and parents struggle with how to appropriately monitor this area and help their children avoid the negative aspects of its use.

Poll results also demonstrate parents’ continued concern about children’s mental health. Over half of parents cited mental health topics as big problems of US children, such as depression/suicide, and stress/anxiety, and related topics like bullying. Notably, nearly half of parents cited lack of mental health services as a big problem. The mismatch between the growing number of youth with mental health concerns and the limited access to mental health services has short and long-term implications for children’s well-being.

Parents also expressed a high level of concern about violence in school, which may reflect direct experience with school shootings or fights as well as media coverage about such events. In addition, changes to the school environment (e.g., metal detectors, armed guards, locked doors) and active shooter drills may remind children and parents about the potential for school violence. Parents may struggle with how to manage their own stress and anxiety while they try to reassure their child. They may want to talk with their child periodically about how they perceive their safety in school and their emotions regarding unsafe school incidents. Parents can talk with their child’s teacher or principal to make sure adequate protocols are in place if an unsafe situation arises.

New to the Top 10 is concern about the costs of healthcare for children, including costs of getting health insurance. In recent years, federal policies required states to maintain Medicaid enrollment through the duration of the pandemic. As these requirements are ending, families that no longer qualify will face the challenge of finding affordable coverage for their children.

Unhealthy eating and obesity continue to rate as important issues, but have been overtaken by concerns about mental health and social media/screen time. For both ongoing and emerging concerns, parents may find their child’s health care provider can serve as an effective partner to help address these problems.

This Mott Poll also highlights the greater level of concern about a host of issues among parents from lower-income households. This may reflect their day-to-day experiences dealing with environmental challenges such as unsafe neighborhoods, as well as bullying or discrimination that may be more frequently experienced by children from low-income families. In addition, low-income parents reported higher levels of concern about mental health and substance use; while these problems affect children and teens across the income spectrum, it’s possible that low-income parents feel more vulnerable about these problems. Overall, parents from low-income households rated a higher number of topics as big problems; concern about a greater number of child health issues may contribute to their higher reports of parental stress as a big problem.


Saturday, August 19, 2023

THORN - Parenting in the digital age — made easier.

 


Parenting in the digital age is hard.

Whether your child already has their own device, has begun asking for one, or frequently uses shared devices at school or at home, it’s not easy to navigate the online world we and our children now live in.

We know you want to set a good foundation for your child’s online safety. We also know that sounds way easier said than done.

Don’t worry; our Digital Parenting: Device Access Guide has you covered.

The free downloadable guide is for every parent who feels like they could use a little help with:

Understanding privacy settings and how to manage them.

Navigating monitoring apps and determining whether they’re right for your family.

How to talk to your child about online safety early and often, in a way that builds trust and feels natural instead of awkward and uncomfortable.

The Guide will help you feel confident and in-the-know about how kids view and approach online spaces.

Join thousands of parents and get the Digital Parenting: Device Access Guide today.


Thursday, August 17, 2023

Back-To-school Safety

As the back-to-school season approaches, UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital Injury Prevention Team and Safety Store offer some tips to help keep children safe throughout the school year. 

Transportation Safety Tips

For walkers

  • Choose safe routes: Teach your child to walk on the sidewalk whenever possible. If there’s no sidewalk, teach your child to walk facing traffic to be aware of oncoming vehicles.  

  • Crossing streets: Before crossing the street, children should stop and look left, right, and left again to watch for cars. 

  • Eye contact: Instruct your child to make eye contact with drivers before they cross the street to help ensure that drivers see them before crossing the street. 

  • Stay alert: Distracted walking can be dangerous. Teach your child to stay alert by keeping phones and other distractions away while walking. 

For bike riders

  • Wear a helmet: Make sure your child always wears a properly fitted helmet and bright clothing. Helmets are sold at the Safety Store

  • Lane safety: Your child should ride on the right side of the road, in the same direction as traffic. They should maintain a single-file formation with other cyclists. 

  • Crossing the street: Instruct your child to stop before crossing the street, and to walk their bike across the street. 

For bus riders

  • Bus stop etiquette: Go to the bus stop with your child to teach them how to get on and off the school bus safely. 

  • Maintain distance: Teach your child to stand at least six feet away from the curb on the sidewalk for safety reasons. 

  • Bus riding etiquette: Inform your child to stay seated facing forward, and to speak in soft voices to not distract the bus driver. 

  • Safety crossing the street: If crossing the street in front of the bus is necessary, teach your child to walk on the side of the road until they are ten feet ahead of the bus. This ensures both the child and the bus driver can see each other. 

For parents driving their children

  • Observe speed limits: Obey school zone speed limits and follow the designated drop-off procedures.  

  • Be alert: Make eye contact with children who are crossing the street to ensure their safety. 

  • School bus safety: Never attempt to pass a school bus that is loading or unloading children. Maintain a safe distance—at least ten feet—from the school bus to allow children to safely enter and exit the bus. 

For teen drivers

  • Practice regularly: Inexperience is a common cause of teen accidents. Practice driving with your teen every week, before and after they get their license. 

  • Set a good example: Drive the way you would like your teen to drive.  

School Safety Tips

Backpack safety

  • Manage weight: A backpack should weigh no more than 5% to 10% of your child’s body weight to avoid strain. 

  • Use both straps: Encourage your child to use both straps to distribute the weight evenly on their shoulders. 

  • Watch for rolling backpacks: While convenient, rolling backpacks should be used cautiously since they can create trip hazards in crowded hallways. 

Playgrounds and sports

  • Avoid hazards: Leave necklaces and jackets with drawstrings at home to prevent strangulation hazards on playgrounds. 

  • Avoid hot playground equipment: Teach your child to avoid playing on hot playground equipment, as burns can occur if the playground equipment is too hot from the sun. 

  • Head injury awareness: While minor bumps are common in sports, head injuries should never be ignored. Prompt attention is crucial. 

Safety Store

The University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital Safety Store is the first of its kind in Iowa and serves families across the state, offering low-cost child safety products and an inventory that includes adaptable safety products designed specifically for children with special health care and educational needs. 

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Mandatory reporting was supposed to stop severe child abuse. It punishes poor families instead.

After the Penn State scandal, Pennsylvania required more professionals to report suspected child abuse. A flood of unfounded allegations followed, ensnaring thousands of low-income parents.

More than a decade before the Penn State University child sex abuse scandal broke, an assistant football coach told his supervisors that he had seen Jerry Sandusky molesting a young boy in the shower. When this was revealed during Sandusky’s criminal trial in 2012, it prompted public outcry: Why hadn’t anyone reported the abuse sooner?

Mandatory reporting was supposed to stop severe child abuse. It punishes poor families instead.

After the Penn State scandal, Pennsylvania required more professionals to report suspected child abuse. A flood of unfounded allegations followed, ensnaring thousands of low-income parents.

April Lee believes a call from a mandatory reporter triggered an investigation that resulted in her kids being taken away. “You get to the point where it’s almost normalized that you’re going to have that knock on your door,” she said.

Stephanie Mei-Ling for NBC News and ProPublica

By Mike Hixenbaugh, Suzy Khimm and Agnel Philip, ProPublica

This article was published in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive ProPublica’s biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

PHILADELPHIA — More than a decade before the Penn State University child sex abuse scandal broke, an assistant football coach told his supervisors that he had seen Jerry Sandusky molesting a young boy in the shower. When this was revealed during Sandusky’s criminal trial in 2012, it prompted public outcry: Why hadn’t anyone reported the abuse sooner?

In response, Pennsylvania lawmakers enacted sweeping reforms to prevent anything like it from ever happening again.

Most notably, they expanded the list of professionals required to report it when they suspect a child might be in danger, broadened the definition for what constitutes abuse and increased the criminal penalties for those who fail to report.

“Today, Pennsylvania says ‘No more’ to child abuse,” then-Gov. Tom Corbett declared as he signed the legislation into law in 2014.

A flood of unfounded reports followed, overwhelming state and local child protection agencies. The vast expansion of the child protection dragnet ensnared tens of thousands of innocent parents, disproportionately affecting families of color living in poverty. While the unintended and costly consequences are clear, there’s no proof that the reforms have prevented the most serious abuse cases, an NBC News and ProPublica investigation found. 

Instead, data and child welfare experts suggest the changes may have done the opposite.

The number of Pennsylvania children found to have been abused so severely that they died or were nearly killed has gone up almost every year since — from 96 in 2014 to 194 in 2021, according to state data. State child welfare officials say more vigilance in documenting severe cases of abuse likely contributed to the increase. But child safety advocates and researchers raised concerns that the surge of unfounded reports has overburdened the system, making it harder to identify and protect children who are truly in danger.

In the five years after the reforms took effect, the state’s child abuse hotline was inundated with more than 1 million reports of child maltreatment, state data shows. More than 800,000 of these calls were related not to abuse or serious neglect, but to lower-level neglect allegations often stemming from poverty, most of which were later dismissed as invalid by caseworkers.

The number of children reported as possible victims of abuse or serious neglect increased by 72% compared to the five years prior, triggering Child Protective Services investigations into the well-being of nearly 200,000 children from 2015 to 2019, according to a ProPublica and NBC News analysis of federal Department of Health and Human Services data. From this pool of reports, child welfare workers identified 6,000 more children who might have been harmed than in the five previous years. But for the vast majority of the 200,000 alleged victims — roughly 9 in 10 — county agencies dismissed the allegations as unfounded after inspecting families’ homes and subjecting parents and children to questioning.

The expanded reporting requirements were even less effective at detecting additional cases of sexual abuse. Some 42,000 children were investigated as possible sex abuse victims from 2015 to 2019 — an increase of 42% from the five years prior — but there was no increase in the number of substantiated allegations, the analysis of federal data showed. In other words, reforms enacted in response to a major sex abuse scandal led to thousands more investigations, but no increase in the number of children identified as likely victims.

Child welfare experts say these findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of the primary tool that states rely on to protect children: mandatory child abuse reporting. These policies, the bedrock of America’s child welfare system, were first implemented more than half a century ago in response to growing national awareness of child maltreatment. The thinking was simple: By making it a crime for certain professionals to withhold information about suspected abuse, the government could prevent vulnerable children from falling through the cracks.

Over the past decade, at least 36 states have enacted laws to expand the list of professionals required by law to report suspicions of child abuse or imposed new reporting requirements and penalties for failing to report, according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures, a group representing state governments.

Some legal experts and child welfare reform activists argue these laws have created a vast family surveillance apparatus, turning educators, health care workers, therapists and social services providers into the eyes and ears of a system that has the power to take children from their parents.

“I don’t think we have evidence that mandated reporting makes children safer,” said Kathleen Creamer, an attorney with Community Legal Services, a Philadelphia nonprofit that provides free representation to parents accused of abuse and neglect. “I actually think we have strong evidence that it puts child safety at risk because it makes parents afraid to seek help, and because it floods hotlines with frivolous calls, making it harder for caseworkers to identify families who really do need services.”

In a yearlong investigation, ProPublica and NBC News are examining the extraordinary reach of America’s child welfare system and its disproportionate impact on the lives of low-income families of color. The stream of reports generated by mandatory reporting is so vast, and so unevenly applied, public health and social work researchers estimate that more than half of all Black children nationally will have been the subject of a child protective services investigation by the time they turn 18 — nearly double the rate of white children.

After a hotline report comes in, it’s the job of child welfare investigators to determine whether a child is truly in danger. These caseworkers aren’t held to the same legal or training standards as law enforcement, but they can wield significant power, ProPublica and NBC News found, sometimes pressuring their way into homes without court orders to comb through closets and pantries, looking for signs of what’s lacking.

Under this system, child welfare agencies investigate the families of 3.5 million children each year and take about 250,000 kids into protective custody, according to federal data. Fewer than 1 in 5 of these family separations are related to allegations of physical or sexual abuse, the original impetus behind mandatory reporting. Instead, the vast majority of removals are based on reports of child neglect, a broad range of allegations often tied to inadequate housing or a parent’s drug addiction.

In response, a growing movement of family lawyers, researchers and child welfare reform advocates have called for a radical change in the approach to child protection in America, starting with the abolition of mandatory reporting. This idea has grown in popularity among both progressive activists and activists conservatives who oppose what they call excessive government intrusion in the lives of families. Other critics support less dramatic reforms, such as limiting which professionals are required to report and providing better training for mandated reporters.

New laws led to a surge in the number of parents brought before Philadelphia Family Court judges on allegations of child neglect.

Stephanie Mei-Ling for NBC News and ProPublica

The fallout from Pennsylvania’s expansion of mandatory reporting has become something of a cautionary tale among those calling for a system overhaul. Even some proponents of the changes have begun to question their impact.

State Rep. Todd Stephens, a Republican who helped spearhead the post-Sandusky reforms, said the impact of the changes warranted closer examination. In response to NBC News and ProPublica’s findings, he said he would lead a legislative effort to take a “deep dive in the data” to ensure the laws are protecting children as intended.

But Stephens said he believes the legislation is working, citing the massive increase in hotline reports and the 6,000 additional children with substantiated findings of abuse or serious neglect over five years.

“The goal was, if people thought children were in trouble or in danger, we wanted the cavalry to come running,” Stephens said. “That’s 6,000 kids who are getting help who might not have otherwise.”

Child welfare experts, however, cautioned against drawing conclusions based on the increase in substantiated abuse cases because those are subjective determinations made by caseworkers that children were more likely than not to be at risk of being abused and do not indicate whether the findings were ultimately dismissed by a judge.

Dr. Rachel Berger, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh who served on a task force that paved the way for the 2014 reforms, said the state has not produced evidence to show the changes have made children safer.

In 2020, while testifying before the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Berger warned lawmakers that the reforms “may have inadvertently made children less safe” by straining the system and siphoning resources away from genuine cases of abuse.

“We are continuing to tell mandated reporters, ‘Report, report, report,’ and nobody can handle it,” Berger said in an interview.

Jon Rubin, deputy secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services’ Office of Children, Youth and Families, which oversees the state’s ChildLine call center, said it’s “really hard to evaluate” whether the 2014 reforms succeeded in making children safer overall. Rubin said he’s aware of the concern that the changes overwhelmed the system and may have contributed to the increase in child abuse deaths. But he cautioned against drawing conclusions without considering other factors, such as the strain on the system caused by the fentanyl epidemic beginning in 2017.

Rubin said his agency is studying ways to reduce the number of hotline reports related to poverty and housing issues, in part by encouraging mandatory reporters to instead connect families directly with resources. The state has also made it a priority to keep struggling families together by providing access to services such as mental health counseling and parental support groups, Rubin said. He worries about the potential impact of more dramatic changes.

“How many children’s lives are we willing to risk to, as you said, abolish the system, to reduce the overreporting risk?” Rubin said. Would preventing unnecessary reports, he asked, be worth “one more child hurt or killed, five more children hurt or killed, 100 more children hurt or killed?”

But Richard Wexler, the executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, a Virginia-based advocacy group, said that this logic ignores the harm that comes with unnecessary government intrusion in the lives of innocent families. Simply having an investigation opened can be traumatic, experts say, and numerous studies show that separating young children from their parents leads to increased risk of depression, developmental delays, attachment issues and post-traumatic stress disorder.

It isn’t necessary to threaten educators, social workers, doctors and other professionals with criminal charges in order to protect children, Wexler argued.

“Abolishing mandatory reporting does not mean abolishing reporting,” he said. “Anybody can still call ChildLine. What it does, however, is put the decision back in the hands of professionals to exercise their judgment concerning when to pick up the phone.”

The cost of seeking help

April Lee, a Black mother of three in Philadelphia, said she has seen and experienced firsthand the way mandatory reporting and the prospect of child removals create a culture of fear in low-income communities.

In Philadelphia, the state’s most populous city, Black children were the focus of about 66% of reports to the city’s Department of Human Services, its child welfare agency, even though they make up about 42% of the child population, according to a 2020 report commissioned by the department.

Lee on her porch in Philadelphia. Numerous studies show separating young children from their parents leads to increased risk of depression, attachment issues and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Stephanie Mei-Ling for NBC News and ProPublica

Over time, Lee said, moms in neighborhoods like hers get used to having child welfare agents show up on their steps.

“It’s a shame,” she said. “You get to the point where it’s almost normalized that you’re going to have that knock on your door.”

Lee estimates that she’s personally had about 20 such reports filed against her in the two decades since she gave birth to her first child at the age of 15. In most instances, she said, the caseworkers didn’t leave her with paperwork, but she said the accusations ranged from inadequate housing to concerns over her son’s scraped knee after a tumble on the front porch.

The agency never discloses who files the reports, but Lee believes it was a call from a mandatory reporter that triggered the investigation that resulted in her children being taken away. In 2013, a year after the birth of her third child, Lee said, she was drugged at a bar and raped. In her struggle to cope with the trauma, she said, she confided in a doctor.

“I was honest,” Lee said. “Like ‘I’m f---ing struggling. I’m struggling emotionally.’” 

She suspects someone at the clinic where she sought mental health care made the hotline call, most likely, she said, believing that the city’s child welfare agency would be able to help.

The agency opened an investigation and determined that Lee — who at one point had left her three children with a friend for several days — was not adequately caring for her children. The agency took them into protective custody, according to court records reviewed by NBC News and ProPublica. Afterward, Lee said, she spiraled into drug addiction and homelessness.

At her lowest point, Lee slept on a piece of cardboard in the Kensington neighborhood, the epicenter of Philadelphia’s opioid crisis. It took two years to get clean, she said, and another three before she regained custody of all of her children.

Lee said people like to tell her she’s proof that the system works, but she disagrees. 

“My children still have deficits to this day due to that separation,” she said. “I still have deficits to this day due to that separation. I still hold my breath at certain door knocks. That separation anxiety is still alive and well in my family.”

Family photographs hang on the wall at Lee’s home.Stephanie Mei-Ling for NBC News and ProPublicaLee holds a journal she wrote in during the time she was separated from her kids.Stephanie Mei-Ling for NBC News and ProPublica

Now Lee works as a client liaison at Community Legal Services, guiding parents through the system. The job is funded by a grant from the city agency that took her children. Virtually all of the mothers she works with have one thing in common, she said: They’re struggling to make ends meet.

“We see that in a lot of our cases,” Lee said. “You have someone that went to their doctor to say, ‘Hey, I relapsed.’ That’s a call to the ChildLine. Or you have a family that might go into a resource center saying, ‘Hey, we’re homeless.’ That’s a call to the ChildLine. You have children that show up to school without proper clothing. That’s a call to the ChildLine.”

But mandatory reporting, and the fear that it provokes, makes it harder for them to get the help they need.

“The solution to poverty,” Lee said, “should not be the removal of your children.”

Policies driven by outrage

In 1962, a pediatrician named C. Henry Kempe published a seminal paper identifying a new medical condition that he called “the battered-child syndrome.” Drawing on a survey of hospital reports nationwide and a review of medical records, Kempe warned that physical abuse had become a “significant cause of childhood disability and death” in America and that this violence often went unreported.

The paper led to widespread media attention and calls to address what some experts began calling the nation’s hidden child abuse epidemic. In the rush to take action, one solution emerged above all else: mandatory reporting.

Within four years of Kempe’s paper, every state had passed some form of mandatory child abuse reporting. In 1974, despite a lack of research into the effects of these new policies, the approach was codified into federal law when Congress enacted the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, which requires states to have mandatory reporting provisions in order to receive federal grants for preventing child abuse.

It became conventional wisdom among child welfare policymakers that more reporting and investigations would make children safer. States gradually expanded reporting requirements in the decades that followed, adding ever more professionals — including animal control officers, computer technicians and dentists — to the list. They also expanded the definition of child maltreatment to include emotional abuse and neglect.

But critics say these policy decisions too often have been guided by public outrage and politics, not by data and research.

“Reporting has been our one response to concerns about child abuse,” said Dr. Mical Raz, a physician and professor of history at the University of Rochester who has studied the impact of mandatory child abuse reporting. “Now we have quite a bit of data that shows that more reporting doesn’t result in better identification of children at risk and is not associated with better outcomes for children, and in some cases may cause harm to families and communities.”

The Sandusky scandal, Raz said, demonstrates how a high-profile atrocity and public outcry can drive policy decisions.

The longtime Penn State assistant football coach was convicted in 2012 on 45 counts of child sexual abuse tied to the repeated rape and molestation of boys over a 15-year period. An investigation commissioned by the Penn State Board of Trustees found that several university officials, including legendary Nittany Lions football coach Joe Paterno, had known about allegations of sex abuse against Sandusky as early as 1998, but had shown a “total and consistent disregard” for “the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims.”

In response, Pennsylvania passed a raft of reforms. It clarified and expanded the definition of abuse and added tens of thousands of additional people to the state’s roster of mandated reporters — which now includes virtually any adult who works or volunteers with children. It also increased the criminal consequences for failing to report child abuse, with penalties ranging from a misdemeanor to a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Although such prosecutions are rare, child welfare officials said the threat is effective in driving more professionals to report.

But the state failed to include additional funding to handle the anticipated increase in hotline calls and investigations, despite warnings from county officials that the reforms “were going to put a massive strain on their workers and would require additional resources,” according to a 2017 report from the state auditor general.

Those warnings proved prescient. In early 2015, after the changes went into effect and thousands of additional reports flooded Pennsylvania’s child abuse hotline, state officials estimated 4 in 10 callers were placed on hold for so long that they hung up before getting a caseworker on the line.

A playground in Philadelphia, where nearly a quarter of residents live in poverty. The deluge of new reports stemming from the state’s child welfare reform disproportionately involved Black families in the city and led to a sharp increase in the number of children being taken from their parents.

Stephanie Mei-Ling for NBC News and ProPublica

Some ChildLine workers reported an uptick in calls from mandated reporters who openly acknowledged they did not really believe that a child was in danger. Haven Evans, now the director of programs at Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance, which trains mandatory reporters across the state, was working at the state’s hotline center that year.

“There were a lot of mandatory reporters who would even admit on the phone call that they were making this report because they were concerned with the changes in the law and the penalties being increased,” Evans said. “They just wanted to, for lack of a better word, cover their butt.”

In the months and years that followed, the state added funding and workers and upgraded call center technology to keep up with the deluge. But taking a report is just the first step of the process — what some refer to as the child welfare system’s “front door” — and not enough attention has been paid to studying whether the system as a whole leads to better outcomes, said Cathleen Palm, founder of the Center for Children’s Justice, a nonprofit in Bernville, Pennsylvania, that advocates for government interventions to protect children.

In 2018, Palm came out against proposed legislation to further expand mandatory reporting that had been introduced in the wake of the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal and grand jury investigation. Even though Palm is herself a survivor of child sexual abuse, her calls for a formal study before passing more reforms made her a target of attacks, she said.

“I literally got called by a senior official at the attorney general’s office, who called me screaming at me, equating me to a friend of the pedophile,” Palm said. “I was floored. Do you have any sense of who you’re talking to?”

The following year, state lawmakers acted anyway, passing a law that expanded when failure to report is a felony.

The same dynamic has played out across the country: High-profile media coverage of child abuse deaths and child sexual abuse have created overwhelming political pressure to ramp up mandatory reporting, in red and blue states alike.

Eighteen states have gone so far as to implement universal child abuse reporting requirements, deputizing every adult in the state as a mandatory reporter. But a 2017 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that universal reporting requirements led to more unfounded reports while failing to detect additional confirmed cases of child maltreatment.

Kelley Fong, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, has done extensive research into the impacts of mandatory reporting policies. When Fong interviewed dozens of impoverished mothers in Rhode Island and later Connecticut, they described how mandated reporters are “omnipresent” and how the fear of a call to Child Protective Services leads some to avoid seeking public assistance.

But when she spoke to professionals who had filed reports against parents, Fong found a disconnect.

“Almost to a person, every single mandated reporter said, ‘I reported because I wanted to help the family,’” Fong said. “For the most part, these mandated reporters are in their jobs because they want to help people, they want to improve conditions for children and families. And so here is this agency that offers them this possibility of getting help to parents and children.”

Fong compared this approach to sending armed police officers to assist people struggling with homelessness, mental illness and addiction — a practice that’s drawn increased scrutiny since 2020’s nationwide demonstrations for racial justice and police reform. But while there’s growing awareness of the consequences of what activists view as the overpolicing of Black communities, Fong said fewer people have applied that same critical lens to child welfare.

That’s starting to change.

In 2019, in response to concerns that Massachusetts wasn’t doing enough to protect children, the state legislature voted to create a special commission to study how best to expand mandatory reporting requirements. For two years, the commission was progressing toward that goal — until they agreed to hear public comments on their plans. 

During four hours of virtual testimony in April 2021, the commission heard from dozens of parents, social workers, legal experts and reform activists, most of whom expressed deep concerns about the potential harms of expanded reporting requirements. Raz was among those who testified, citing as a warning the dysfunction that followed the Pennsylvania reforms.

Afterward, members of the commission said they were “shocked” and “taken aback” to learn about potential problems associated with expanding the child welfare system. As a result, when the commission delivered its final report to lawmakers in June 2021, it made no formal policy recommendations.

Instead, it called for further study of the unintended impacts of mandatory reporting.

The strain on Philadelphia’s system

Few places were harder hit by Pennsylvania’s surge of new child abuse reports after 2015 than Philadelphia.

Kimberly Ali, commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, the city’s child welfare agency, acknowledged in an interview with NBC News that the change in the state’s mandatory reporting policies put a strain on Philadelphia’s system. She said the local hotline managed by her department “imploded” after the Sandusky reforms. It took the agency years to recover.

“That was a difficult time at the Department of Human Services, just trying to manage the number of calls and the number of investigations,” Ali said.

In a city where nearly a quarter of residents live in poverty, the deluge of new reports disproportionately involved Black families and led to a sharp increase in the number of Philadelphia children being taken from their parents. In 2017, the city’s child welfare agency removed the most children per capita among the 10 largest cities in the U.S. — at three times the rate of New York and four times that of Chicago, according to data compiled by the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

Five of those children belonged to Lisa Mothee.

On Aug. 21, 2017, a mandatory reporter employed by the Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia called in a hotline report flagging that Mothee’s newborn baby had tested positive for opioids. The hospital later reported that Mothee had also failed to provide her baby with proper medical care, because she declined vaccinations and other medical screenings typically provided to newborns, according to court records.

At a court hearing a month later, Mothee, who is Black, told a judge that she had taken a Percocet to cope with pain late in her pregnancy. She explained that she’d stopped consenting to vaccines after one of her children had an adverse reaction several years earlier, which she believed was her right as a parent. After a lawyer for the city’s child welfare agency acknowledged in court that they didn’t have reason to believe Mothee’s children were in danger, she figured the case would be dismissed.

Instead, the judge ordered Mothee and the father of four of her children to be handcuffed and held in court for several hours while child protection agents picked up all five of her kids from school and a babysitter.

“What? No!” Mothee called out, according to a court transcript. “You can’t take my kids! You can’t take my kids!”

Eight months would pass before a different judge ordered her children to be returned. Years later, Mothee said she’s still struggling with the trauma of the ordeal. “It’s like a death,” she said. “You never get over that feeling.”

Mothee’s case was part of a statewide trend post-Sandusky.

The number of Pennsylvania children reported as possible victims of serious medical neglect — a blanket term describing a parent’s failure to provide adequate medical care — nearly quadrupled after the reforms went into effect in 2015, triggering Child Protective Services investigations into the well-being of about 9,600 children over a five-year span, according to the ProPublica and NBC News analysis of federal data. 

This surge followed a change in how the state defined when neglect, including medical neglect, can be considered a form of child abuse. Lawmakers lowered the threshold from any failure to care for a child that endangers their “life or development,” to any failure that “threatens a child’s well-being.” Critics say the change has usurped parents’ right to make medical decisions for their children and has punished people who lack easy and affordable access to health care.

Mothee’s case was among several cited in a scathing report issued in April by a special committee of the Philadelphia City Council that detailed the unintended consequences of mandatory child abuse reporting and alleged failures at Philadelphia’s child welfare agency. 

City Councilmember David Oh pushed for the creation of the special committee after his own brush with a mandatory reporter in 2018. A hospital worker at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia had phoned in a hotline report after Oh, a Republican and the city’s first Asian-American councilmember, brought his son to the emergency room with a broken collarbone. Oh explained that his boy had been injured while practicing martial arts, but the hospital social worker said she had no choice but to notify the city, triggering what Oh viewed as a senseless investigation into a report that was ultimately deemed unfounded.

City Councilmember David Oh at Philadelphia City Hall. Oh pushed to create a special committee that has called for the state to abolish mandatory reporting.

Stephanie Mei-Ling for NBC News and ProPublica

Afterward, Oh said, he heard from dozens of Philadelphia parents, including Mothee, who’d gone through similar ordeals. 

Ali, the DHS commissioner, said her agency has reduced the city’s foster care rolls by about 29% since 2017, with an increased focus on providing families with services rather than removing children. But Oh said not enough has been done to mitigate the fear created by mandatory reporting, especially in poorer Black communities.

“In those neighborhoods, everyone knows about mandated reporters,” Oh said during an interview at his office. “So when your child falls off a bike, you’ve got to think, ‘Do we take him to the hospital or not?’”

Oh’s committee made several recommendations for reforms — including a call for the state to abolish mandatory reporting.

“They have a system where everyone pulls a fire alarm anytime they feel like there’s a potential for fire, and theoretically it’s great because we’re going to catch every fire before it begins,” Oh said. “But how it’s worked out is all our firefighters are running around to false alarms, and now buildings are burning and people are dying. It’s a bad system.”

'Mandatory reporters into mandatory supporters'

Some experts argue that the best way to reduce unfounded reports of child abuse and neglect is not by abolishing mandatory reporting, but by doing a better job of training professionals on when to report — and when it’s better to provide help to a family in need instead.

In Pennsylvania, medical professionals are required to complete a two-hour mandatory reporter training course every two years; other professionals must take a three-hour training every five years.

But Dr. Benjamin Levi, a pediatrician and former director of the Center for the Protection of Children, a research and policy group at Penn State Children’s Hospital, said such training programs typically lack a clear explanation of the “reasonable suspicion” of abuse that should trigger a report.

“‘Reasonable suspicion’ is a feeling — they don’t even define it,” said Levi, who developed an alternative training for mandatory reporters to help fill in the gaps.

“If you increase mandated reporting, and you don’t make sure that mandated reporters know what to report and what not to report, you’ve just made the problem worse.”

Educators, the largest source of child abuse reports nationally, in particular have struggled to correctly identify children in need of help. From 2015 to 2019 in Pennsylvania, 24 out of 25 children referred to Child Protective Services by education professionals had their cases dismissed by case workers as unsubstantiated — but only after children and parents had been subjected to questioning and home searches.

Ali, the head of the Philadelphia child welfare agency, said her department has heard from educators who felt unable to help struggling families because they feared potential criminal charges for not reporting to the abuse hotline. With the support of a federal grant, her department plans to create an alternative hotline that mandatory reporters can call when they believe a family is in need but don’t suspect children are in danger.

Adopting the language of reform activists, Ali said the goal is “turning mandatory reporters into mandatory supporters.”

But Benita Williams, former operations director of Philadelphia’s child welfare agency, warned against more radical change, stressing that mandatory reporters should never hesitate to make a report in cases of suspected child abuse.

“Just report,” said Williams, now executive director of the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance, which supports victims of child sexual abuse. “If you are not sure, report and let the professional screen that out. Don’t try to become a social worker.”

Children wait at an ice cream truck on a street corner in Philadelphia. Child welfare reform advocates have argued for providing parents with more resources to care for their families.

Stephanie Mei-Ling for NBC News and ProPublica

Phoebe Jones, who helps lead DHS-Give Us Back Our Children, a group that advocates on behalf of Philadelphia mothers and grandmothers who’ve had children taken from them for issues related to poverty and domestic violence, argues that the real solution is to address the issues underlying most ChildLine reports, by providing parents and caregivers with a universal basic income to ensure they have what they need to care for children.

“Rather than taking children from their mothers and paying foster parents to care for them,” Jones said, “why don’t we invest that money in families?”

Mike Hixenbaugh reported from Philadelphia; Suzy Khimm reported from Washington, D.C.; Agnel Philip reported from New York.


Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Sex Offender Jumps Elementary School Fence To Attack Child: Police

 A convicted sex offender is behind bars again on suspicion of assaulting a young girl inside a Riverside County elementary school bathroom.

Police arrested 32-year-old Logan Nighswonger of Riverside on suspicion of attempted sex acts with a child under the age of 10 and being a registered sex offender on school grounds.
Police arrested 32-year-old Logan Nighswonger of Riverside on suspicion of attempted sex acts with a child under the age of 10 and being a registered sex offender on school grounds. (Riverside Police Department)

RIVERSIDE, CA — A convicted sex offender is in custody today after allegedly hopping the fence at a Riverside County Elementary school and attempting to sexually assault a child in the girl's restroom, according to the Riverside Police Department.

Police arrested 32-year-old Logan Nighswonger of Riverside on suspicion of attempted sex acts with a child under the age of 10 and being a registered sex offender on school grounds.

The incident occurred at about 12:30 p.m. Friday at McAuliffe Elementary in the 4100 block of Golden Avenue, according to the Riverside Police Department.

"A man had jumped the school fence and entered the girls’ restroom," the police department said in a written statement. "A campus supervisor observed this man, later identified as Logan Nighswonger, come out of the restroom and heard a girl crying inside."

"The campus supervisor followed Logan Nighswonger as he jumped other fences to the parking lot and get inside a vehicle," according to Riverside police Officer Ryan J. Railsback. "He was then able to provide a detailed vehicle description and license plate as the suspect drove away."

"Nighswonger was located and safely detained, then transported back to Riverside and later booked into jail," the Riverside Police Department said in a written statement.

He was booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center, where he is being held without bail.

Nighswonger's previous conviction stems from a 2016 conviction for annoying or molesting a child under the age of 18.

According to a 2015 statement issued by the Riverside Police Department, Nighswonger was arrested for two separate incidents involving inappropriate comments to children and one incident of exposing himself to elementary school students at Mark Twain Elementary in Riverside. He was caught thanks to several students who were able to get his license plate following the incidents, police said.

At the time, The investigation led investigating officers to believe these types of incidents might have occurred at other local elementary schools in Riverside and the city of Corona.

Anyone with information about Friday's incident and arrest or other incidents involving Nighswonger is urged to contact Detective Stacie Ontko at 951-353-7121 or SOntko@RiversideCA.gov.

City News Service contributed to this report.


Saturday, August 6, 2022

FLHSMV: Back-to-School Safety Checklist

It is back-to-school for Treasure Coast public school students next week on Wednesday August 10.

Here is a school safety check list from the FLHSMV Department.

Secure their future – buckle up and choose the right seat

  • Seat belts save lives and are required to be worn by all drivers, front-right passengers, and anyone under the age of 18; however, FLHSMV strongly recommends seat belt usage for all ages.
  • The best car seat is the one that fits your child’s size, is correctly installed, fits well in your car, and is used properly every time you drive.
  • Be sure to read the seat’s instruction manual and the portion of your vehicle’s owner manual when installing a car seat in your vehicle.
  • Remember to check for car seat and booster seat recalls and sign up to receive any potential alerts in the future.
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Image Courtesy FDOT
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Stop for school buses and slow down in school zones

  • As of January 1, 2021, the penalties for failing to stop for a school bus and passing a stopped school bus on the side where children enter and exit doubled. It is imperative that all motorists properly stop for school buses so all of Florida’s children can arrive at school or home safely.
  • Using a wireless communications device in a handheld manner while driving in a designated school crossing, school zone, or active work zone area is against the law and extremely dangerous.
  • Be alert and watch for children especially near schools, bus stops, school buses and in school parking lots. Pay extra attention to the lower speed limits in school zones. Only drive or park in authorized areas to drop off or pick up children at school.

Move safely together – look out before you step out

  • Always walk on the sidewalk if there is one. If no sidewalks are present, walk against the direction of traffic so that you can see oncoming vehicles.
  • Cross the roadway where pedestrians are expected, at corners or in crosswalks, and watch for traffic when crossing the street.
  • Pay attention. Avoid headphones so that you can hear the traffic and pedestrians around you. Never text or look at your phone when crossing the street.

Check for kids and pets

  • As routines change, it’s imperative to remain vigilant and make sure all children are out of the vehicle and accounted for before leaving. Put your purse, phone, or shoe in the backseat as a reminder to check.
  • Never leave a child or pet unattended in a vehicle. Florida temperatures are hot and will rapidly increase in minutes, even if parked in the shade or with a window cracked.

For additional safety tips, resources, and data related to child safety visit the FLHSMV Child Safety webpage.