SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – A California case employee hears shouting as she attempts to carry out a telephone session for a kid abuse prevention firm; an Oregon physician sees indications of abuse an instructor might have spotted days earlier.
FILE PHOTO: An ambulance drives throughout a nearly empty East 42 nd Street in heavy rain and high winds in Manhattan during the break out of the coronavirus illness (COVID-19) in New York City, April 13,2020 REUTERS/Mike Segar
Social distancing limitations targeted at curbing the spread of the coronavirus have taken a steep toll on the already delicate systems U.S. cities and states utilize to track and avoid child abuse and disregard.
Chronically understaffed and underfunded companies across the nation say calls to the hotlines they depend on to flag abuse and overlook are down by as much as 70%.
Teachers report U.S. kid abuse cases much more than any other group of people, but stay-at-home constraints have reduced their collective ability to keep an eye out for children’s well-being. Physicians, who likewise report lots of cases, are generally not seeing kids for regular checkups at this time.
” As numerous as two-thirds of all cases of child abuse and overlook are never reported and regrettably during a time like this my issue is those children plus some are out there and have no other way of being seen,” said Bobby Cagle, chief of Children and Family Providers for Los Angeles County, the most populous in the United Stat