Child welfare officials are worried about a recent
spike in calls to the state child abuse hotline and
suspect it’s due to extra family stress brought on by
the recession.
The hotline received 6,185 complaints in March, up
from 5,104 in February and 5,070 in March last year.
Those figures represent calls referred to local offices
for investigation to see if children are at risk of harm or
need social services. Typically 80 to 85 percent of
calls come from tipsters worried that a child is being
hurt or neglected, while the rest reflect attempts to get
troubled families food, heat or housing.
“Over the last two months we’ve seen a rather
significant increase in referrals,” said Kate Bernyk,
spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of
Children and Families. “We think it’s very much due to
the current economic crisis because we don’t have
anything else to attribute it to. We generally don’t see
calls of this volume in this time period.”
Complaints to the statewide hotline ebb and flow
seasonally and often rise after high-profile abuse
cases raise public awareness of endangered
children. Bernyk said calls haven’t hit this volume
since March 2006; back then officials believed that a
rise to nearly 7,000 calls was due to widespread
publicity of the horrifying case of 7-year-old Nixzmary
Brown, who was beaten to death by her stepfather in
New York City.
