A state audit discovered that thousands of calls to a Pennsylvania child abuse hotline were unanswered for the past years. This raises concern on the repercussions that these unattended incidents and mishandling of child welfare services may have led to.
The Auditor General's office reviewed the calls received by ChildLine from 2014 to 2015. It alarmingly found 22 percent or 42,000 calls that were either unanswered or had been left hanging before the caller even got the chance to talk to a staff member in January 2015.
"In 42,000 unanswered calls, it is very possible that something happened to a child as a result of that. But we have no way of knowing that one way or the other, and that's our biggest problem," Auditor General Eugene DePascuale said at a Capitol news conference as reported by Philly.com.
According to Star Gazette, the Department of Human Services has been operating ChildLine since 1975. The child abuse hotline service has been dedicating 24 hours every day of the week to answer incoming calls.
ChildLine has been fulfilling its duty remarkably until recently, modifications of the Child Protective Services Law took a toll on it. The service has since then been understaffed with the overwhelming increase of child abuse incident reports (via Star Gazette).
"While strengthening laws to combat child abuse was a critical achievement, not providing the funding to enforce those laws was a disturbing failure," General DePascuale said as per Star Gazette.
Human Services Department Secretary Ted Dallas took immediate action to solve the problem and has prioritized employment to meet the number of needed staff. The Secretary happily reported the progress that they have made, reducing the percentage of unanswered calls to 12% in March 2016.
Nonetheless, the Secretary acknowledges that there is still much to be done for further improvement of the service. They will focus on operations and hiring and training new staff (via Pittsburgh-Post Gazette)
Center for Children's Justice Founder Cathleen Palm told Pittsburgh-Post Gazette that there is a need for people to believe in the child welfare system in order for it to work. "We've got to get restored confidence in the child welfare system," she said.
Do you think that the current efforts to improve the ChildLine service are enough? Shoot your suggestions in the comments section below and follow Parent Herald for more news and updates.
