County Innovations and Solutions

Hamilton County, Ohio The numbers surrounding child abuse and neglect are tricky. A British medical journal, The Lancet, found that only one in 10 incidents of abuse in highly developed countries tends to be confirmed by social service agencies. With Hamilton County, Ohio confirming about 2,400 such cases in 2010, the real number could be as high as 24,000. Having a more accurate count would allow the county's job and family services department to better address the issues. In 2010, Brian Gregg, job and family services department spokesperson, was receiving calls from news reporters asking about domestic violence cases or drunk driving incidents where a child was present, though not directly involved. "We had no idea about them," Gregg said. "They had never been reported to us." Because police officers, along with medical professionals, teachers, child care operators and others are required to report incidents of child endangerment, agency director Moira Weir decided those mandated to report incidents needed clarification on what that mandate covered. "Even if a child wasn't directly involved in an incident, chances are there was some impact," Gregg said. "Maybe they don't think it's abuse when a child isn't the one being hit at home, but they're witnessing it. Those are things we need to know." The agency had a clear goal train law enforcement and other mandated reporters on what was germane to the agency's mission and educate the general public on how to report suspected abuse. The public awareness campaign Do Ask, Do Tell was conducted via a training video for the mandated reporters and a public service announcement for the general public. The training video walks viewers through some of the specific cases Gregg heard about from "mandated" or "news" reporters police responding to a domestic incident where a child was present and a drunk-driving stop with a child in the car. It also describes symptoms of child neglect. "You shouldn't act as a screener for abuse that's the role of the evaluation expert at children's services," the narrator says in the video. "If you have concerns about a child's well-being, you must report it." The video was distributed via DVD to police and sheriff's offices, schools, child care centers and other mandated responders. In the months following the campaign, the number of calls to the county's job and family services increased by 9 percent. The overall cost of video, website, DVD and brochure production, along with airtime for the PSA, totaled $61,000, close to evenly split between six months of PSA airtime and the video production. The agency regularly revisits the campaign on social media. "It's hard because the higher the number of calls, the closer we are to a more accurate count, but it also means more children are likely being abused or neglected," Gregg said. He has heard from people who were hesitant to call when they suspected something. "They'll tell me they didn't want to report something because the child would be taken away," he said. "We don't want to do that we'd much rather address the situation and reserve that as a last resort. We always try to work with the family."