Substance abuse can lead people to lose their jobs, homes, friends, partners, even their children.
Vermont’s Department for Children & Families fielded a record number of calls about child abuse last year, and 27 percent of them were related to substance abuse.
For nearly 50 percent of the children age 5 and under who entered state custody, drug or alcohol use was a factor.
Other factors were physical or mental disabilities, domestic violence, financial stress and mental health issues.
In the state agency’s Morrisville district, the number of child abuse reports has decreased steadily in the last three years — but the percentage of substantiated investigations has remained steady.
The state gets involved with a family when there is a risk of sexual abuse, or when a child’s physical or emotional health or welfare is at risk.
In 2014, the district accepted 260 reports of child abuse for intervention, 242 in 2015 and 212 last year. This number includes child abuse investigations, child abuse assessments and family assessments.
Of the 212 reports accepted for intervention in 2016 — from a little over 1,000 calls — only 110 turned into investigations, compared to 117 in 2015 and 136 in 2014.
While that may look like progress, the decline in reports could simply mean there are fewer children in the population, said Luciana DiRuocco, administrative assistant to the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families.
Looking more closely at the data, the percentage of substantiated reports dropped from 33 to 29 percent from 2014 to 2015, but remained level — at 29 percent — in 2016, with 32 cases.
Broken down, seven of the substantiated cases were for physical abuse, 11 for sexual abuse, 10 for risk of harm and 1 for risk of sexual abuse.
Thirty-two cases were also opened for continued service last year — 15 percent of all district investigations and assessments, up from 12 percent of the year before.
The department investigates all valid allegations of sexual abuse and risk of sexual abuse, regardless of the relationship between the alleged abuser and child. Most other state child welfare agencies do not investigate allegations of child sexual abuse by non-caregivers, so when compared nationally, Vermont’s statistics often range a little higher.
Caseloads vary across the state from 12 to 19 families per social worker.
In the Morrisville district, the caseload is around 14 families per social worker, with 46 children in state custody, 26 children in conditional custody, four delinquent youth cases and four probation cases.
The Legislature approved funding that added 35 social workers across the state in 2015 in an attempt to push caseloads closer to the limit of 12 families per social worker set by law. However, the caseloads remain high statewide — at an average of 16 families per social worker — because of the ongoing drug epidemic and increase in calls, DiRuocco said.
“We’d all love to have more resources,” DiRuocco said. “What we are trying to do outside of the social worker-to-family contact is work to address substance abuse along with other agencies. Hopefully, by targeting this specific population, we can reduce the number of families with multigenerational trauma and reduce our caseloads.”
Child abuse isn’t the only type of case the Department for Children and Families deals with. Social workers also have conditional custody orders, juvenile probation, open assessments and all court-involved cases.
“Even while children in state custody have decreased, our cases have increased,” DiRuocco said.
The state is trying to work more constructively with parents and family members, as well as with other agencies, to meet the needs of children.
In some cases, that means the child remains with a parent, or moves in with a relative, but receives continuing services from the department.
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