Reporting child abuse most often done by professionals

You have read the disturbing details:

“The girl weighed about 51 pounds when Child Protective Services asked police to remove her from the home. That’s about two-thirds the weight of a healthy child her age.

“Doct

ors also reported that the girl had what appeared to be cigarette burns on the tops of her feet.”

Perhaps, too, you have read letters to the editor in The Herald praising a shop owner who believed a child was in dange

r and contacted Child Protective Services:

“Thankfully for this child, somebody finally took a chance and called CPS. That took guts … “

On Tuesday, a Mukilteo woman accused of beating and starving a 10-year-old girl pleaded not guilty to felony charges. The case came to light in August after a store owner, alarmed by a child’s appearance, made that call.

Put yourself in that store owner’s shoes. Do you report what you see? Or maybe you look away.

Nagged by that question myself, I wanted to learn more about people who report suspected child abuse. Where do most reports come from? Who is required to call?

And in our current political climate, with rhetoric flying about government intrusion, should those of us with children fear nosy neighbors?

It’s a subject I wish did not exist. Those are uncomfortable questions I hope never to encounter in a real-life situation.

Toni Sebastian, a practice consultant with the state Department of Social and Health Services Children’s Administration, has some answers.

“The majority of the folks who call us are educators,” Sebastian said Wednesday. “They’re seeing children Monday through Friday, early morning to afternoon. They are mandatory reporters.

“Neighbors, people in stores, someone observing something they’re not comfortable with, those calls are more on the rare end — which makes this woman so admirable,” Sebastian said of the store owner who called authorities in the Mukilteo case.

The agency’s website includes a long list of people legally required to report what they believe is evidence of child abuse. Along with teachers, medical professionals and police officers, they include psychologists, child care providers and juvenile probation officers.

Andy Muntz, a Mukilteo School District spokesman, said all candidates for teacher certification in Washington must have taken a course covering physical, emotional, sexual and substance abuse. “And teachers are definitely mandatory reporters,” he said.

Muntz said teachers are involved in “quite a few” referrals to Child Protective Services. In the 2010-2011 school year, he said, the Mukilteo district logged 139 referrals to CPS, and in the previous year it was 160. A teacher does not necessarily find out what steps the state agency, or police, take after a report is made, he said.

Sherry Hill, spokeswoman for the DSHS Children’s Administration, sent an Aug. 19 update on the case in Mukilteo to state lawmakers after it was reported in The Herald. “Children’s Administration did not have an open case on this family,” the message said. Hill said the agency commends “the quick, appropriately responsive and excellent work” of after-hours Child Protective Services staff and Mukilteo police. The message also conveyed thanks to “the concerned citizen who reported the suspected abuse.”

Hill said the Mukilteo case is one of three recent investigations into food being withheld from a child. “Using lessons learned from previous cases of child abuse and neglect, we enhanced social worker training over the past few years, to recognize malnutrition in children,” Hill wrote in the message to lawmakers.

Those earlier lessons were expensive. After the father of 4-year-old Shayne Abegg and the man’s girlfriend were found guilty of criminal mistreatment, the state paid $6 million for a trust fund for the Everett boy, who was found near starvation.

In a companion case settled earlier this year, DSHS agreed to pay $2.85 million to Shayne’s older brother. Attorneys for that boy argued that the agency neglected to remove him from a home where he was starved, beaten and neglected.

Of my three children, one has made multiple trips to walk-in clinics and emergency rooms. He skateboards and has played lacrosse, soccer, indoor soccer, basketball, baseball — and now football. He and I have had some enthusiastic disagreements over bedtime, homework, taking out the trash. I’m certain I am not the only parent who ever worried what the neighbors must think.

Sebastian said calls do come from neighbors, and that sometimes they are upset about parenting that doesn’t match up to their own. She said social workers are trained to listen for details of abuse as it is outlined by state law — either physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect. Social workers check for previous reports.

She acknowledged that some calls may be sparked by anger over a barking dog or a messy yard. “Our job is to filter that out as much as possible,” Sebastian said. She added that reasonable use of corporal punishment is allowed by state law.

While mandatory reporters must identify themselves, she said other callers may not have to. Knowingly making a false report is illegal.

“What is important to know is that if you see something that looks like abuse, you don’t have to decide. You can respond with what you’re seeing and call in,” Sebastian said. “We want to make sure kids are safe.”

In Mukilteo, it looks like the system worked exactly as it should.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.

How to report abuse or neglect

To report suspected child abuse or neglect, contact local offices of state Department of Social and Health Services’ Division of Children and Family Services:

Everett: 425-339-4768 Lynnwood: 425-673-3100 Sky Valley: 360-805-2100 Smokey Point: 360-651-6900

Nights and weekends: 800-562-5624

Statewide hotline: 866-363-4276 (866-ENDHARM)

For more information, go to http://tinyurl.com/ DSHSReport.