HARRISBURG (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - Child welfare advocates in Pennsylvania say reports of alleged abuse are starting to return to the state’s Child Line system.
In the weeks after COVID-19 hit, child abuse reports dropped by 50 percent.
Officials knew abuse didn’t stop, but one-third of all reports come from schools, which were closed.
John Rubin at the PA Department of Human Services says, “and (we) did everything that we felt we could we could do to reach out to the community and shift our messaging away from mandated reporters in schools to really talking about neighbors protecting neighbors.”
For May, child line reports have increased but are still down 40 percent from the same month last year.
Case workers are still investigating.
“We receive a report of child abuse and neglect that typically we would go out on, we have continued to do that, we consider our first responsibility to be to assure the safety of children, that we’ve done that,” said Rubin.
The state’s child line number is 1-800-932-0313.
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