i'd like to welcome our witnesses to this hearing today we are dealing with a very difficult and upsetting subject abuse and neglect and we know sometimes unfortunately it results in fatalities we would here from witnesses on how to improve responses for amp of then violence and abuse in families and crisis abuse neglect and fatalities of our significant social concerns in our nation the official number of children killed from abuse or neglect nationwide in two thousand and seven is one thousand seven hundred sixty into a one the total is one thousand three hundred three quarters of the fatalities are children under four as a nurse for over thirty years i have seen firsthand the risks and illnesses that can result due to abuse and neglect we know that children who experience abuse or neglect and children that witness abuse have this sense of security trust and safety shaken to the core studies have shown that young children are more likely to be reported as victims in fact of all cases the maltreatment rate for instance was twenty one percent for the children ages one to three it was thirteen percent the majority of child victims experienced neglect in fact more than sixty percent of the children who come to the attention of child welfare authorities are victims of  victims of acts of omission in terms of their care in terms of their well being sometimes these incidents of neglect due to the simple fact that parents need assistance these parents are not monsters rather they need to be connected with  bailable services or perhaps they need help with basic parental know how we know from studies that the impact of chronic long term the collectors of the staying to the development of children victims of abuse or neglect are more likely to have developmental delays and impaired language of cognitive skills they're more likely to be arrested for delinquency and violent criminal behavior as adults we also know they have poor health outcomes as adults over thirty five years ago congress an act of the child abuse prevention and treatment act or kept with a very simple purpose creating a single federal focus to deal with the front end issues associated with abuse and neglect i like to think of captures prevention programs as the first learned fence in the child welfare system but kept the formular and competitive grants focus on the prevention of child abuse and ensuring continued wellbeing and safety of children they kept the programs consist of two major grant programs as well as targeted research data collection and technical assistance to the states these grant programs provide funding for improvements to child protection services promising prevention efforts and community based efforts to prevent abuse and neglect capture provides grants to states for technical assistance and require states to have laws related to reporting child abuse investigations procedures and procedures resources for be working with sick affected families in order to receive states must meet a minimal definition of child abuse and neglect well kept as brought much needed attention and changed the issues of child maltreatment this number still remains too high the rates of physical abuse  decreased in recent years but the rate rates of the collective remain disturbingly consistent and we know that difficult financial times can certainly advocate violence and victims with few a personal resources become increas vulnerable for example since the economical crisis began it has been reported that three out of four domestic violence shelters have reported an increase in women seeking assistance from abuse that means we have more work to do which is why i am holding this hearing today i want to thank you also being here and i look forward to the testimony that will here i know recognize my distinguished gentleman gentleman from pennsylvania ranking member plas for his opening statement you madam chair and first want to thank and commend you for your continued leadership and focus on this very important issue as we seek to work with partners throughout the nation and protecting our children and helping our nation's families do right by their  children i'm going to submit my full statement for the record because as i mentioned i want to apologize up front to you and to the witnesses against human cloning but for me and i'm posed to be in about four spots right now so i only have about a half hour before i've got to run out and hopefully i'm going to get back then for later part of the hearing this morning i want to very much thank our witnesses for being here to share your expertise in your knowledge but most importantly i want to thank you for day in and day out working to help protect our nation's children to serve them and their families we can all be part of the same team your work is critically important to the safety of of so many children throughout this country and each day you're making a difference and i commend you for your effort permanent record without objection all members will have fourteen days to smith additional materials or questions for the hearing records i would like to briefly introduce our very distinguished panel witnesses here with us this morning the complete bios of the witnesses will be inserted into the record today we will hear from six witnesses each of whom will focus on abuse and neglect eventual and action i want to thank all of you for taking the time out to be here in front of this panel i also ask unanimous consent for a member of the full committee ms woolsey and a member who is not on the committee represented glenmore to sit on the di e question since each of these members have been leaders in domestic violence and child welfare issues i get i welcome you to our committee in the interest of time given the large number of witnesses today i will keep my formal introductions short our first witness is dr win the hangman the director of violence prevention the center national center for injury prevention and control at the c d c has held this position since one nine practical practice philadelphia pa pennsylvania prior to arrival at penn docs parker was the associate commission of the children's bureau at the u s department of health and human services administration for children and families and was responsible for the administration of federal child welfare programs our next witness is karen kaplan she has almost thirty years experience in child welfare and policy in practice as a director of the child protection executive director of the nassau county coalition against a mystery island's served in that role for nearly twenty five years under her leadership the nassau county coalition against domestic violence has grown into a multifaceted comprehensive domestic violence service organization helping over three thousand adults and children annually saunders vision insight commitment have encouraged the agency to develop and develop individualized and tailored services to meet the needs of the dolls and you think tim is in crisis these services include crisis intervention counseling services safe zones transitional housing community education and outreach legal services and legislation and legal is executive director of the pinnacle health children's resource center and has been employee of pinnacle help system for twenty four years she co founded the hospital based children's advocacy center program in harrisburg pennsylvania nine hundred ninety four and  since that time she's been working to ensure the children are safe and well cared for the children's advocacy center in harrisburg is one of the most renowned children's advocacy centers in pennsylvania and a great model program model center for other centers around  the state and including in my congressional district the center collaborates with partners in the community to prevent investigate and treat child abuse miss meth is also a savior for the national children's alliance and the co chair of the pennsylvania kept working group smith we're delighted to have you here thanks for your work back home and for your testimony here today so you'll back finally i would like to introduce rob sawyer from homestead county child and family services in minnesota welcome mr sawyer image rector of child and family services in minnesota spent years working on child abuse prevention issues in his state he brings a wealth of the ground experience in our discussion today and we welcome you let me explain the lighting system that's in front of you for those of you have not testified in front of congress before everyone including the members is limited to five minutes of presentation of questions the green light will illuminate when you start speaking the yellow light will go on when you're just about your time is ready up and when you see the red light you will need to conclude your testimony  we're a little more lenient on allowing members to finish this thoughts so we want to hear all of your testimony please be certain to turn on your microphone when you sought to speak to us and we will now hear f thank you and good morning chairwoman mccarthy ranking member plats and other distinguished members of the subcommittee on behalf of c d c it is an honor to be here i serve as a director of the division of violence prevention at c d c s injury center today i will highlight that public health can complement child welfare and protective services by bringing proven prevention strategies to scale this involves three key points that public hell has an important role to play in preventing child maltreatment second that we have the opportunity to put in place innovations in how we prevent child maltreatment through evidence  strategies and third that scaling up these approaches in the sense of tates partnerships between public health social services and child serving entities to ensure quality we know th child maltreatment has significant short and long term health consequences for example in two thousand and seven an estimated one thousand seven hundred sixty children younger than eighteen years of old died as a result of maltreatment we also know that approximately seven hundred ninety four thousand children were determined by state and local child protective services to be victims of child maltreatment these numbers no doubt  under representation because the data only reflect cases that are reported to the child protective services but we also know that exposure to child maltreatment has long term health consequences into adulthood such as heart disease cancer drug abuse and depression moreover studies show that exposure to child maltreatment is linked to other forms of violence including youth violence and intimate partner violence there is a wealth of evidence showing the needs of children for healthy development first we know that children need to be safe from physical and psychological harm secondly we know that children need a degree of stability in their environment and third they need a nurturing parent or other caregiver that is consistently available to meet their needs the way to reduce maltreatment is to promote child help we can do this by fostering safe stable nurturing relationships using a public health approach we are at a critical juncture because we now have prevention programs that work now is the time to focus on wide scale implementation of those programs recent cd studies show that child maltreatment rates actually fall when parents have access to interventions that address problems with child behavior for example triple p parenting program combines broad social campaigns with targeted parenting support services in addition early childhood home visitation programs are affected for instance the nurse family partnerships focus on first time mothers during pregnancy working to promote positive health and interactions between mother and child although there are promising interventions there are still some opportunities for improvement we need data that provides a comprehensive understanding of the ideal settings for interventions and we need a better understanding of risk surrounding child maltreatment we need to continually evaluate promising strategies including programs and policies that target at the individual and community levels so that we can widely implement we need to develop public health capacity to support prevention programs that compliment child welfare and child protective services we must work to make prevention accessible especially to parents without stigma so in conclusion public health can lessen the burden on child welfare and protective services by bringing prevention strategies to scale and ensuring that they are accessible to all families that need and want them scaling up these approaches necessitates collaboration between public health social services and child serving agencies a partnership between public health and child protection services will allow more people to access programs that strengthen families and help building to live life to their fullest but could you turn your mike on it's a good idea chairwoman mccarthy and ranking member platts it's an honor for me to be back here in this forum i speak based on my experience i've been working in child welfare forty years including my service as associate commissioner of the children's bureau since i left the children spiro i've been focusing on assisting large child welfare systems attempt to improve their services i want to talk a little bit about the background related to cap and then offer four  areas that i think would be useful to consider in improving child welfare so the child protective services kept it was originally an act in one nine hundred seventy four to a sure that all children experiencing maltreatment had the protection of the state kept to encourage the development of systems that could receive reports of abuse and neglect evaluate them and provide protection for children kept a has facilitated affectively the development of child protective systems across the country as well as the development of knowledge and practice strategies to address this problem over the years kept it has been modified to include adoption abandoned them sense and homeless children it provides funding for prevention research and program development  if we've heard the statistics already on maltreatment today but i want to underscore several ideas first that neglect is the largest category of child  maltreatment and secondly i want to underscore that the data tells us that the children under four are the most vulnerable they comprise seventy five percent of the children who die and they are unable to protect themselves and often invisible to the community because of their age for the children at greatest risk child protection involves using the police power of the state to intervene and family lives through a combination of assessment decision making and service protective service agencies operate to help families and children the four areas of concern i'd like to speak to briefly are decision making our decision making interstate referrals for abuse and neglect support for workers and then  finally the issue of partnership with communities let me just say that we've made significant progress in terms of decision making and developing decision making protocol to guide child protective service workers but we are not where we need to be we now have the capacity through technology and other resources to begin to apply actuarial science to to the predictive aspects of child protection we need an additional focus on decision making to improve the way judgments are made second only i want to speak to the question of interstate referral what we have found i live and work in an area that involves two jurisdictions if the child and the put if the child the location of the event and the perpetrator are not in the same jurisdiction cases are likely to fall through the cracks because one jurisdiction will say well the child's not in our jurisdiction another jurisdiction will say well the event didn't occur here so in a time of mobility there's a real problem that cases get reports get lost and potential perpetrators don't get tracked so that's an area that i would encourage you to look at the third area i would encourage you to look at is really improving the capacity of supervisors to support frontline workers this is very difficult work workers have are exposed to difficult situations to child trauma repeatedly they are at risk of burnout they are at risk of secondary trauma and i think the most critical thing that we can do in terms of that is strengthen supervisors ability not only to manage work but to to support them the next area has to do with partnerships with communities child protection cannot be done by the child protective services to malone communities shape the values and attitudes that we have towards children a number of jurisdictions have been quite effective in sharing information about the conditions of children in their neighborhood and organizing the neighborhood to begin to create new messages and new structures to protect children and to create neighborhood ownership of the responsibility for child protection so one of my recommendations is that you use the discretionary resources of captive to promote more woodberry strategies to child protection they will complement prevention strategies they will also compliment the work of the child protective services agency in attempting to increase the chairwoman mccarthy ranking member platform members of the subcommittee my name is karen kaplan of the child protection director of child protection reform an american humane i am honored to provide comments on the reauthorization of child abuse prevention and treatment act and thank the chairwoman ranking member and subcommittee members for the invitation to do so for american humane is a national nonpartizan membership organization that was founded one hundred thirty two years ago to protect the welfare of children  animals our testimony reflects over a century of perth progressively advocating at the federal state and local level for laws that protect both children and animals from abuse and neglect in nine hundred seventy four congress passed what was and still remains the preeminent federal legislation addressing child maltreatment throughout the united states the primary responsibility of child protection agencies is to receive and respond to all reports of alleged child abuse and neglect historically there's been one response by the child protection agency to accepted reports an investigation given that the majority of families who come to the agency's attention are at low or moderate risk of maltreatment and are not experiencing immediate safety issues a trend has emerged since nine hundred ninety three among child welfare agencies to respond to these families differentially in a way that is much more responsive to the needs they present differential response or i will also refer to a dead d r is based on several foundational tenants families are not all the same and the severity of the family situation is not identical across families who come to the attention of the agency it's important to be responsive to the specific differences another foundational tenet of differential response is based on the fact that the child welfare data nationally collected annually indicate that many families receive no post investigation services after being identified in labeled as child abusers these families these families refuse services and the case is closed a significant proportion of these families will return to the agency as there is no intervention to the immediate difficulties they have some will eventually be involved in the court and they will be ordered to comply with court decisions  families has been to produce incentives to meet an obligation instead of promoting cooperation and motivating families to change which is the aim of differential response differential response emphasizes the value of child and family assessments without a determination that maltreatment has occurred it allows for access for available resources and services rather than soley investigating the occurrence of maltreatment services are provided to families without labeling a perpetrator a victim and without listing anyone in the central registry thirty eight percent of victims or three over three hundred thousand children nationwide received no post investigative services this was data from two thousand and seven in states that have mature differential response practices much like minnesota and my colleague rob sawyer will speak to this between sixty and eighty percent of the families screened in by the county child welfare agencies receive this family assessment response and that is the name used in minnesota to refer to their differential response system families to come to the attention of the c agency because the child has poor hygiene is and inadequately supervised harshly disciplined are examples of families that can receive a non investigation response families to come to the attention of the c agency because a child has been sexually abused will receive an investigatory response the likelihood of any criminal activity requirement valving of law enforcement is considered a and is not considered appropriate for differential response and family for which there is substance abuse or domestic violence or family violence of any kind may receive one are the other response depending on the specific situation and the characteristics of the family differential response has been implemented statewide and in selected jurisdiction jurisdictions in twenty states nationwide the number continues to grow although research is in its infancy random assignment design studies a rig or that is not common in the child welfare system show the following positive result child safety is not compromised in some instances safety is achieved sooner repeat cases of abuse and neglect decrease there are higher rates of family cooperation and participation there are lower placement rates in foster care the costs to the system are reduced over time and there is increased satisfaction both by the workforce and the families that are participating in a differential responses to him on behalf of american humane i respectfully request that the subcommittee entertain for recommendations support the efforts of states local and tribal child welfare agencies to provide differential responses to individual families who come to the attention of the child protection agency many families through no fault of their own  history know how and resources to protect their children from harm or risk of harm differential response systems allow for and promote the use of interventions that do not alienate nor demonize parents but rather engage parents  addressing the needs so they can successfully and safely parent their child support flexibility to front load the system the current federal child welfare funding streams provide incentive to place children outside their home the primary way to prevent removal of children from their families of origin is to invest resources whether they be staff time in an intervention concrete and therapeutic services and formal and informal supports at the beginning a family's involvement with the child protection system the identification of service needs in a differential response begins at the first contact with the family without delaying the availability of service provision until an investigation or any other agency procedures are completed to the extent possible encourage modifications in the state automated child welfare information system better known as sack allow for capturing the data of those children who are part of a differential response with the implementation of differential response the current child welfare data systems require modification in order to collect and produce quality data so that we can understand and assess what is happening with these families while we understand that appropriated levels of funding did not come out of this committee it is significant to note that as i said previously three hundred thousand children identified as victims of maltreatment receive no posting that is a gate of services therefore we request your support for the increase of allocation american humane hopes this ca serves as a foundation an impetus for the reduction of children who experience abuse and neglect and an increase in the number of families who have sufficient strength capacity and supports to keep children safe from harm thank you thank you ms kaplan thank you chairwoman mccarthy and the distinguished members of the committee for the opportunity to testify about the family violence prevention and services that are known as fips or i'm sandy oliva i'm the executive director of the nassau county coalition against domestic violence a full service domestic violence and rape crisis agency serving all of nassau county new york i've been in that role for twenty five years but i come here today not to speak for my agency but to speak on behalf of all of my colleagues across the country and of course all of the survivors whom we serve i'm testifying to support the sepsis swift reauthorization it expired in two thousand and eight so swiftness is that is the only federal funding dedicated to domestic violence shelters and services and for twenty five years it has been the lifeblood of growth of programs that are at the heart of our nation's effort to prevent an end domestic violence with one and a half million american women and some eight hundred thousand men physically abused by their spouses or partners fifteen and a half million children posed to that violence annually and an average of three women a day being murdered by former or current partners is clear that the work is essential well phipps of funded domestic violence shelters and programs have saved and transform millions of lives great needs remain as the economic crisis that we're in for the widens the gap between the growing demand and available resources it's more important than it ever was before to invest in these cost saving programs so that advocates across the nation bill that will allow us to continue to provide these vital services and build upon as strengths to improve and expand services and i tell you about a couple of of the people that we have served and their families first anita my agency helped her she had been in a very long term abusive terribly violent marriage and one night her husband told her it's time for good therapy couples therapy we're going together put her in the car but he took over to a remote area and shot her left her for dead fortunately she was found in russia the hospital the hospital knew to call our hotline and one of our advocates went to her side then surely she came into our safe home where she was reunited with her terrified young daughter and was able to heal from her physical industry injuries and begin to plan for her future now she's living in a safe location one of our transitional omes and has moved from crisis to stability there's a woman who was left for dead and got a new chance at life with her child there are approximately fifteen hundred zips funded programs like ours across the nation in two thousand and seven and eight these programs sheltered almost six hundred thousand adults and children last year my agency served over three thousand individuals adults and children answered officer thousand and one calls domestic violence programs across the country are available twenty four seven and respond to both the immediate crisis needs of victims in danger and their longer term needs to become safe and self sufficient and for almost every story like the need is there is a gut wrenching story of a victim who cannot receive lifesaving services because program simply don't have the resources according to domestic violence counts to zero eight on just one day in two thousand and eight while over sixty thousand victims were served by d v programs almost nine thousand requests for services when unmet because programs lack adequate resources to serve them so i strongly support the recommendation to increase the funding authorization level if it's to meet the needs of all victims another one of our clients will call her mary she came to her safe home with her five children after her two month old baby was released from the hospital with sixteen broken bones the abuser who had been violent with every member of that family for years threatened to kill them all if she ever told anyone about the abuse that had been going on she was at the shelter for a while received individualized counseling case management advocacy legal services from our agency and the children the children had to have a great deal of therapy as well but now this on victimized terrified into a mentor family is thriving in a safe environment with the tools they need to rebuild their lives excitingly and i'm thrilled to be able to say especially in this company that we our domestic violence agency is about to co locate with the local coalition against child abuse neglect and so that both a very cs can work with families like mary's in efficient effective way with excited about the colocation in the collaborative effort which we hope will be a model across the country we support the recommendation to include a funding set aside for specialized services for abused children and their parents in the so their programs have the resources to provide age appropriate services to children in a supportive environment for the non abusive parent and break the cycle of violence you cannot have safe children if you don't have safe parents to successfully meet the needs of all victims programmes must be able to target resources and the fits the statute must be reflective of all victims needs through outfits of the language should be more inclusive of children and youth as well as victims from under served population say plans to distribute fits the funding should reflect steps taken to meet the needs of all victims including those who are marginalized specifically we recommend that include appropriate definitions of domestic violence dating violence and you to ensure that victims regardless of age can receive vital tailored services we also recommend enhanced and improved targeted resources for culturally specific programs and services so that all victims can be safe and finally the delta grants prevention grants are a key component of fifty reauthorization they help communities and states make strides toward preventing domestic violence and we think prevention is probably the most important thing that can happen and they do this by changing the community and personal attitudes about relationships and abuse therefore we strongly support the recommendations to enhance and expand delta to sum up in the words of one little boy when asked what he liked about the shelter that he and his mom had been in in maryland he responded i can sleep at night now all victims and their children deserve to be able to sleep at night and feel safe to move closer to achieving this goal we're just the committee to prioritize the swift reauthorization of inclusive of the recommendations with an adequate funding level thank you very much  smith chairwoman mccarthy ranking member member plats and all of the subcommittee members i'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today on the child abuse prevention and treatment act and the impact this funding has had on service provision locally statewide and nationally for child victims of abuse my experiences as a former child welfare case worker in pittsburgh the director of a local children's advocacy center in harrisburg and an accreditation site reviewer for the national children's alliance have helped to shape my commitment to ensure children receive what they need to feel safe cared for and believed i have also had the privilege of acting as co chair of the cap to work group in pennsylvania and observing firsthand  the teamwork and perseverance necessary from state and local government nonprofit agencies and public private partnerships to meet the requirements necessary to become compliant and eligible under capta pennsylvania as the fiftieth state to do so submitted its application and state plan for capta in spring of two thousand and six professionals from child serving agencies and disciplines across the state have been working diligently to meet the requirements of selected several areas for improvement to pennsylvania's child welfare response although our state is early in this process great strides have been made that demonstrate the efforts of those committed to providing quality services to child victims and their non offending family members the pennsylvania cap to work group has selected several areas for improvement among them in hansing the child protective services system by developing improving in implementing risk safety and developmental  tools skill based training for child welfare workers state public and private agency staff is critical to ensure children at risk are dental fide and appropriate strategies and actions take place for their health safety and welfare developing and the still attending training protocols on mandated reporting target audiences that have regular and ongoing contact with children such as primary medical providers schools hospital staff and first responders collaboration among many such child serving agencies and community based programs support comprehensive physical and behavioral health needs of children who are reported to be abused these are among just a few of the initiatives in progress as pennsylvania carries out kept the requirements for compliance and cap to funding has allowed pennsylvania the opportunity to move forward with the establishment and training of citizen review panels to provide recommendations for systemic change of the child protective services system training of health care providers to report drug affected infants has increased the opportunities to engage families that might have remained it visible in the system thereby improving outcomes for those that are addicted as well as their children i've conducted more than seventy accredited credit ation site visits children's advocacy centers across the country over the past seven years i've met many dedicated professionals community members and staff members from public and private agencies who are charged with providing services to child abuse victims and their non offending family members many centers utilize federal funding for child abuse prevention and treatment programs to reach under served populations and develop public private partnerships to provide services in creative ways captive compliance has allowed pennsylvania to examine its current child welfare system and develop improvement for the benefit of children and families in addition to child abuse prevention and awareness efforts capta compliance will also allow pennsylvania to increase its impact on providing a coordinated response to child abuse across the state through access to funding from the criminal justice act the children's advocacy center or cac model is a collaborative community response that coordinates multidisciplinary partners in the investigative evaluation and treatment of child victims of abuse thousands of child abuse victims in pennsylvania have benefited from the collaborative team approach for child interviews medical exams and mental health treatment c j a funding will be a welcome resource to assist those communities in developing effect of child abuse multi disciplinary teams the pentagon health children's resource center as an accredited cac has served a geographic region of more than twenty counties for many years in two thousand and eight the children's resource center evaluated eight hundred eighty three children from many counties in central pennsylvania approximately thirty approximately fifty two percent are referred for services from dolphin county a third class county the c r c is seen an increase this year the numbers  children referred for both sexual and physical abuse and an increase in requests to interview siblings of children that have died often county has seen a twelve point eight percent increase in the numbers of indicated cases of child abuse thus far this year in two thousand and eight there were four reported deaths in doffing county in the first ten months of this year there are already been ten child deaths prior to two thousand and nine pennsylvania did not keep statistics of child near deaths but has kept them this year in compliance with capta in dolphin county alone there have been eight near faith talib ease of children for which were indicated cases of abuse the increase in numbers of reported abuse cases in the severe any of this abuse inflicted is evident in this community captain c j a provide support for local programs and is essential to continuing the comprehensive quality services provided to child abuse victims in pennsylvania and throughout the united states child abuse prevention efforts as well as coordinated interventions are imperative to providing a safe environment for children families in the communities in which they live and i welcome any questions you may have thank you good morning to the ranking member plats and members of the subcommittee my name is robert quinn sawyer former director of child and family services in allstate county minnesota i appreciate the opportunity to offer comments on the  abuse prevention treatment act and thanks chairwoman carthy ranking member plats in the members of the subcommittee for the invitation to do so the comments that i will offer reflect a local perspective on child welfare reform efforts and differential response in child protection in particular for more than a decade the minnesota department of human services in collaboration with eighty seven counties and eleven tribes has been actively engaged in child welfare reform minnesota is a state supervised county administer child welfare system generating considerable local control in the provision of services for children and families in the child welfare system minnesota counties fund approximately forty eight percent of all child welfare services in the state the state department and counties enjoy a positive constructive working relationship that has facilitated a strong child welfare reform effort the minnesota department of human services in cooperation with the mcknight foundation support of the for your pilot project in twenty counties from years two thousand to two thousand and four a rigorous field study was conducted by the institute of applied research using control groups participa in views and the review of administrative data significant findings included child safety was uncompromised fewer child maltreatment reports less costly approach in the long run families like the approach social worker supported the approach in two thousand and five minnesota laws changed requiring a differential response system in child protection with the preferred way to approach families being a family assessment for reports not alleging substantial child endangerment what is differential response a differential response system organizes a child protection agency to respond in a proportional manner to reports of pile possible child maltreatment at a minimum and investigative response and a family assessment response provides an agency option in how to approach a family when there is an accepted report of child maltreatment and investigative response continues to focus on reports alleging substantial child endangerment a family assessment response is a requirement response of the agency that assesses the needs of the child or family without requiring a determination that maltreatment occurred or that the child is at risk of maltreatment the majority of families reported for nicol act or abuse receive a family assessment response where fault finding is set aside and replaced with a safety focused family assessment and services in minnesota high risk reports continue to receive a forensic investigation but greater attention is now paid to family and community engagement and the recognition of strengths that could be used to promote safety and wellbeing during the four years two thousand to two thousand and four that this program transitioned from pilot to full implementation out of home placements in minnesota decreased twenty two percent homestead county initiated the county wide differential response system in one thousand nine hundred nine the differential response system is organized to provide an investigative response a family assessment response and a domestic violence response for those reports where a child is exposed to ent family violence implementation of groups the provision of consultation framework family involvement strategies and group decision making for major decisions have supported the practice model that strives for partnership with families and collaboration with community resources over the past decade with the implementation of a differential response system on state county has seen the following positive results fewer investigations less repeat child maltreatment less court involvement less children in placement more family involvement and more children served perhaps the greatest lesson learned through the implementation of a differential response system is it it is not what we have to do alone that is important but how we choose to do it makes a difference we have changed how we see and engage families and through that have reached better results the following recommendations i respectfully presented for consideration one support the efforts of states counties and tribal child welfare agencies to establish differential response systems in child protection to support the efforts of states counties and tribal child welfare agencies to front load the system providing supportive interventions for at risk families screened out of child protection thank you for the work you will do in the reauthorization of cap to continue to hand and safety and wellbeing for children and the strengthening of families to provide a safe nurturing home with thank you thank you mr sawyer i thank you all for your testimony and as i said earlier we knew that this was going to be a difficult hearing  basically hearing the issues are facing our families and our children in our nation in like many of you i believe that we all can do better to protect our children they are the future of this nation and i think it's extremely important that we have our work cut out for us but hopefully work with all of you as we go forward on the of the things that you had said in your testimony especially talking about when a child abuse case happens over state lines even though they might live in your state and how sometimes they're falling through the cracks and the cases are not really followed through we also know that unfortunately we have seen many stories in fact i have from the associated press a series of reports from two zero seven which discuss the shadow of sex abuse in the us schools because one of the things that we have seen that someone that might be a sex offender goes from one state to another state and works in a school and have a great concern about that if you could talk about that a little bit and what can be done and how we can improve on that it's one of the critical issues is in this whole process of evaluating reports of child abuse is attempting to identify the perpetrators where people cross state lines and generally teachers child care providers when they go to a new state very have to go through a criminal records clearance and the child abuse records clearance if there's been no identification because a case has fallen through the cracks there when they're reviewed their records come back as if there was no problem so that the more we can resolve the interstate conflicts the more we can identify perpetrators that may be moving around and that's true in terms of teachers child care providers as well as relatives if a case is screened out because it didn't occur in the right place or because the child is not in a particular place we have no track record on that we cannot even predict how many of these cases are lost because there is no trail thank you sandra you know you talked about the unique partnership that we have a national county for the luck local child abuse agencies in the coalition against child abuse and neglect could you go a little bit into and on how basically you came up with the idea and how you became the partners and have a little more influence on the family and the  child yes we've actually been planning and working on this i'd say for about six years now our agency has had a long term state grant which we actually just had doubled to put  domestic violence specialist within the net so candy department social services child protective services unit so we've seen for a very long time how critical it is to work on the issues of domestic violence and child abuse in coordinated ways so very often you have co occurrence in the same family and if you don't have safe parents if the non if the non abusive parent isn't feeling safe she's not going to be able to protect the child so we began to work together with the local child abuse agency which has a advocacy center as we've been described today to look at ways we could partner and determine what we really needed to do was not just have some projects together but really to work very closely to be able to cross train our staffs so when we had a family come in we could identify the issues for the children and the moms and when they had children come into their center who had been sexually assaulted they could begin to identify where the with the mothers also had been victims and been unable to protect themselves or their children and also needed help and so we're really looking as we're calling it the safe place and we're looking at one location where all families will come they'll be served for their different specific needs and different by the two different agencies because we remain two separate agencies at this point but we would be able to our staff will be walking back and forth will be doing programs together we're going to have a training institute about family violence which focuses both on domestic violence and child abuse we're going to be working with parents because the issue of supporting families and working with parents and strengthening parenting is critical in protecting victims and in giving them really enabling them to tap into their strengths and live independently and live self sufficiently which is also critical so this is this idea has been brewing between our two agencies myself and the director of the other agency now for years and years trying to figure out the best way to do it and we think the state is very excited about it because this is a model because it's really not done anywhere else so we're hoping that we can develop something which other other agencies across the country will be interested also in developing and of course it's smart business you know we there's also cost savings then there's efficiencies involved in these days you need to save every penny you can for programs why duplicate the cost of boardrooms and kitchens and bathrooms and copiers and you know that kind of thing when there are smart ways to do business thank you mr wells thank you madam chairman for holding this very important hearing and thank everyone of you all for being here to participate and i'm sorry you have to be here i'm sorry the issues even out there my career and background as an o b g y n physician and you go through a difficult pregnancy to deliver a healthy baby and then you put it in an environment where it can't be healthy and safe and i was just i don't know about dr hammond i noticed the c d c definition the threat of harm i felt that maybe that kept me on the straight and narrow i felt the threat of harm sometimes at home to keep me getting my homework and so forth  one of the issues initially i wanted to talk to you about which i think is extremely important for domestic shelters at home ours is called site package and job before i got here was mayor of our city and we almost passed the hat i mean we get a few federal dollars if you state dollars a few local dollars two weeks ago i just my wife and i guess we're attended a fundraiser for you know we were the keynote people at the fundraiser that's good try to raise a little money because it's a life  it's not over it's not a boat it's a life vest because these people are sinking they have no other place to go that's right and it needs to be open twenty four seven and i wholeheartedly support that program i mean we have a tremendous volunteers and johnson city tennessee where i'm from that support this very needed and also the children's advocacy center also great programs just a comment about the funding if you would have how or where you are do you are you able to fund your center we were able to fund our center primarily through cana funds because we are reimbursed on a per person per day basis in new york state is different from most in that those women who go to a shelter or century ha flee unless they have a lot of money and almost none ever come in with access even to that kind of money they have to go on to town of they've gone to welfare and so we're reimbursed that way and that has that has really  it's a degrading process to so many people but and it's shameful but on the other hand it's really produced the supply of funding that enable shelters in new york to survive but i'll tell you it's not enough because you can't have a shelter in isolation and the fifth the money goes to shelters and to programs that support it you've got to have a hotline running twenty four hours a day you've got to have advocates able to work with women and to advocate for them with all the many systems you've got to be interacting with the criminal justice system on behalf of these women we provide legal services so especially with growing immigrant populations we need we need to spend really we need specialized immigration legal services for so many of our clients so the funding for these programs is essential agree with you you can't you can't live on volunteers you must have paid staff and that's that's where most of the cost of our problem is we don't have we can barely pay the staff and that's where everywhere you're understaffed and i hear you loud and clear a couple of quick questions a demographic i know that years ago if you're eighteen years old when you have your first child you have a high school education you're married those three things you almost don't live in poverty and then those things i think are missing so when the children are abused is it educational level is it drug abuse is it property is it urban versus rural i mean what have you i know you've got a model to tell us and anybody can answer this question someone who's at risk i guess is what i'm asking what what you ask what puts people at the greatest risk by well in domestic violence it has it's a great deal to do with the way in which people grow up what they learn what they learn about how to channel their feelings how to channel their their anger how to use the power that they have within their families and so much of abuse is about that but there is no doubt that the economic issues are there and if we have so many women who are stuck in relationships they can't get out of marriages they can't get out of the house that the apartment that they're living because where are they going to go how are they going to take care of their kids and so that the economic issues are tremendous we find that being able to provide transitional housing through federal dollars is has been the key to helping women not just escape on a temporary basis from the immediate danger but to be self sustaining and really begin violence free lives with their families dr hammond one quick question my time's about out but do you all have the demographic of that from an contributors decide to child abuse but i want to underscore there is no absolute profile of who is or is not an abuser but what we're trying to do in public health is is look at circumstances families the pressures of everyday parenting can be exacerbated for example by economic conditions in a partner conflict in the home and the more we can  involve others in particular i would suggest the primary health care system as an avenue for the support that's the more we can provide some system for early intervention the potential for child abuse and neglect in families but families and parents particularly need a safe environment in which to get the help where there is less risk of them in fact losing their kids so that's why i've been underscoring the need for public health to compliment what child protective services and child welfare agencies can do thank  true thank you madam chair mr caplan and mr sawyer you made a compelling argument for the differential response system and you said that twenty states already have this ip and that it's kind of a no fault system where there's a front load of services and in families where there may be abuse or neglect how do these states pay for it does that require funding above and beyond  the the allocation that's there can any cap the funds be utilized towards it or can this be done through reallocation of fun in minnesota about practically half of the funding for all child welfare services is raised through local property tax so the state county commissioners are in a position to levy finding that  the second source of funding comes from the state legislature and the appropriations that it takes and then the for third source of funding in minnesota is the federal revenue that comes into the state and it really is a stream of funds i think the request  the federal government is that the more flexible and the less caps that are put on funding makes it easier for the system to to access and be able to fund programs that are appropriate level and i would just said that i wanted rob to go first because he i knew what he was going to say specific to minnesota kept a title one dollars can be used kept a title two dollars cannot be used because they are targeted to children that are not involved with child protection system and that's by design so that there are monies that are dedicated exclusively for the preventive arm by that is not typical it is very much a patchwork where people are taking dollars from the children stresses that they're taking dollars from safe and stable families there are local and state revenue streams but it is there's not a dedicated source of dollars and  you know capped a dollars are not a plenty and so a small amount might have the ability to go ahead and be targeted toward it but they're able to do it but there are not a whole lot of dollars to do that so are you saying that one part of the fund should be more flexible or that there should be targeted funds for this i think that frankly the states would be very pleased to have more flexibility and that ability should allow for using dollars in this way thank you dr hammond prevent child abuse california brought to my attention a fundamental flaw in the structure of our child protective services they said that most funds are only available after cases made official and that that is to say when child protective services get in gets an initial phone call making them aware of possible abuse or neglect federal funds can't be used can't be used evaluate whether or not that case should be pursued and considering the fact that an average investigation costs twelve hundred dollars it could be quite costly to the tight budgets of a child abuse  agency can you can you talk about this basically would seem like the incentive would then be to either make a finding of abuse to pay for that investigation and evaluation not thank you for the question i'm not familiar with the details of the law and how the money flows with respect to evaluations but i can say that  everything that we can do to invest on the front end with preventive services will in the back in lessen the cost of families getting  if we had ways to identify support for preventive services perhaps through new ways of doing health care in the primary health care system that would prevent the need for the ba costs that you're referring to but i'm happy to refer your question to the department of health and human services regarding the specifics of how the costs are related to  abuse investigations and what can be done there and i would be happy to provide that thank you respon about the numbers staggering twelve point eight percent increase in indicated cases and often county and then from four already four last year deaths already ten this year just  really heart wrenching statistic economic stressors really having an impact i think on the stress that people are feeling i can't specifically say in these cases and often county what those  things were that brought it to that point but i know that the children that we're seeing more in our advocacy center and we are a hospital based center so we can provide the medical exams right there seem to be not only more frequent but more severe cases particularly of physical abuse and i believe that some of those deaths were related specifically to physical abuse of those children  study recently but i think the majority of the children that we're seeing the average age is still around six to eight years old we do seem to see a lot of very young children i know that we have evaluated children as young as  just a few weeks old so two weeks a few weeks a few weeks i believe one of the child deaths and often county was above of a five week old infant just heart wrenching could you expand on that and how that kind of works and the type of feedback or the structure or just in the process of doing that actually letters have just gone out there will be three panels in pennsylvania  in different regions of the state we're going to be training the citizens and the child welfare system itself and then asking for their input in what they see the citizens  were sent letters requesting anybody that was interested or hoping to have folks from various areas maybe the had already had some experience in their life of dealing with the child welfare abuse more so then helping in the in the local communities to a dentist well they'll be regionally they'll be pulled from those regions so hopefully we'll be able to get some of the information from the rural areas as well as from the urban areas what the specific issues are that are being dealt with again about how to respond to prevent and respond to an improvement what's working in their area and try to have that shared in a broader sense dubey working with state officials from the department of public welfare and sharing that information and then the department will be looking at how to take neighborhood do you mean truly a local neighborhood or local community and how you pay that working that's a great question i'm number jurisdictions have started the process mapping where the reports come from because reports sometimes are disbursed but sometimes they're really aggregated in certain neighborhoods or certain communities so the first thing an agency would do is to look at where the reports are coming from then to begin to identify those communities with the greatest vulnerability in terms of child abuse and neglect then the agency really are recruiting really recruits neighborhood leaders and reza there and share information about what's happening to the children and families in their community and begin a process of brainstorming in collaboration to begin to build strategies that the neighbors can literally engage in to keep children safe one of the problems we have in child protection is that we've held on to this notion of privacy and confidentiality so closely that people really don't understand how many children are being removed from the neighborhood what the circumstances are so when data gets presented it really surprises people because this is been kind of an invisible process and this is not about destroying privacy but it's about giving a picture of what's happening in the community and then you begin to see the community say wow we didn't know what's happening to our kids we need to begin to think together about how we can use churches and civic clubs and actually community to work on this issue of safety to begin to say to a parent in a way we're not willing to do now don't you really think let me offer you another way to talk to your child about this so that you begin to change almost the culture of the neighborhood so that children safety becomes paramount and it's a capacity building process but i think we've got to recognize that communities are part of the answer and we need to begin that kind of discourse and  you know more of a present and then you know the communities because of the different times were now both parents having to work more both in both parents working or or more single parent families it's harder to have that type of engagement that maybe we need to try to return to for the sake of children in all ways including when it comes to abuse let me just say that there are a number of jurisdictions that have been working on this  jacksonville it was it's been really interesting because as they begin to talk to the community the neighborhood about what kids need it what was needed people begin to say were kids really don't have anything to do after  school so it kind of raises the challenge of caring and it puts pressure and so they began to organize within that community afterschool programs and got some seed funding so that kids could stay in their neighborhood but there was some place for them to go we've seen a similar strategy in houston where they looked at the area where most of the kids are coming from and they began to talk about what was going on in that neighborhood because of the high rates of interest of african american children in the child welfare system so they began to mobilize the african american community and now they're beginning to see after a period of three to the next question here i just want to say with the testimony that you've all been saying it's not the one mentioned public health primary primary care and nursing services and then working together what sandra was talking about of bringing everything together until we're able to have also doctors for a goal of what you were talking about bringing the community together in one place so they can see the child and the family as a whole i happen to think that would certainly help each and every one of you in your job mr thompson thank you madam chair ms ali that you talked about in your testimony about the importance of providing services to teens as it relates to their being victimized by dating yes violence can you indicate for us where there might be added efforts made for those who are victimized by dating violence as opposed to domestic violence or are there needed professionals or are there two approaches that need to be taken to address that population  well actually dating violence is a subset of domestic violence it's a form of because domestic violence has to really be seen as something broader than just a husband wife or or two partners who are living together it also involves invo intimate partners whether they are related living together or seeing each other dating each other and having a relationship and as we all know our kids are dating earlier and earlier you know seem to be getting older  faster and this issue of violence within teen relationships is growing exponentially it's the one place we were really seeing significant increase in the violence is in particularly for young women between sixteen and twenty four this is a very high risk population in high schools and colleges and so we be leave that early intervention through prevention services being able to to reach young people  teens and not not expect them to come to the schools for their help but to work with the schools to be able to bring the issues the messages to the schools to let the kids know who's there to help them but kids are not going to go for help to a school counselor because of the stigma or the fear or ratting on the guy or this the stigma of being seen by everyone is the young woman who was raped or the young woman who's being beaten so what we're really talking about is being able to work collaboratively with between schools and programs to do that kind of outreach so that young people know about and learn about healthy relationships early when they're beginning to have relationships and i'm talking about you know young boys and girls and working with them and giving them a place to come to and that's why the kind of funding we've been talking about for domestic violence is so critical because this outreach and prevention and the ability to provide services i mean so many young women now especially with the advent of technology are being sought we had one girl who who she she had to turn her cell phone on the next to her pillow at night so that he could hear her breathing anytime you want to do from his home and she would never be out of reach i mean this these kinds of things are happening to our kids and we have to become aware of it it's so critical to reach them young if you teach people young to be unhealthy respectful nonviolent to the schools we use some of our fits the money to go into the schools to do programs within the guidance programs within the social studies curriculum we're working in within different depending on where in the school we're invited in now we can get at levels a junior high school high school college level and reach the kids and talk with them and have sessions with them but we understand that the kids are not going to come out publicly in front of their friends for the most part what we do get our kids coming up to a saying my friend this happens after into her then we can reach out to the individual through the guidance counselors and social workers and the schools and arrange for the children to come and work with us on site or other sites near the school make use of other programs because you've got to have i mean absolutely you've got to have communities this is got to be integrated work you cannot be isolated have a program here in a program there in a school here in a library there you've got to integrate all of the resources of a community  in order to work so that we can prevent this and we can have young people growing up in healthy safe relationships and they in turn will then provide healthy safe environments for their children and how early and in the  networking with children use we start very early we start in the first second grades but we we primarily focus because we know at that age what we're really teaching them is if things like hands are not for hitting not to be you know not to be physically hurtful of each other but what we really are real focuses around in the junior high school some somewhere around the early teens because kids twelve years old are involved in relationships at thirteen and fourteen  relationships and even years you don't reach them then when they're beginning to form their ideas children often replicate what they have learnt at home and they also replicate what what piers you know what's the thing to do and how to be and if they don't all if they don't begin to believe that the way to be within relationships is loving and respectful and non abusive then we're never going to this this issue is going to be perpetuated parents and children and and it's just going to go on and on and said stop it we have to we have to get to the get over it and just a question about how perhaps boys young men relate to the program as opposed to girls and young women we've we've been working on different projects over the years that are very successful with young men they're primarily the kinds of problems that say you know real men don't hit real men don't hurt it's that kind of using men who are good role models for them to be there talking to the kids in the schools it's very effective when young men see men they respect speaking to them about how you know how real men are are loving and kind and don't physically harm and hurt and abuse and of course this is very complex abuse is not always physical an awful lot of other kinds of of abuse that go on that you don't see the don't come to the attention of the criminal justice system or the guidance counselors in the school or the social workers and agencies but people who are in very painful a denigrating difficult relationship so it's it's critical to reach the young men and the young women and they're both responsive i do believe that people want to learn and want to be happy and healthy and what they need is a hand they need someone out there to reach them personally and we find that what's especially effective at the college level is working with the residential assistants for example in the dorms and to have someone there who's been trained and understands not to be the counselor but to get someone to the right help so it's reaching out letting people know what is available in your community whom you can go to to help you get the help you need and that back to me is is the way it has to be violence and with all the domestic violence the coalition partners over the past several months to get this desperately needed reauthorization of fifths and i certainly look forward to working with the subcommittee and the committee in the months of head to head to do this i want to ask the panel some important questions but i just want to state for the record madam chair that i do think we need to seek to increase substantially increase the authorization levels for the fits the program and i think that this hearing really substantiates into loose a date for the reasons we've heard some really chilling  testimony here today about the kinds of dangers in women and children are and even men are in and domestic violence situations and some staggering statistics  live presented through the academy on violence and abuse is stating it was three hundred thirty three billion to seven hundred billion dollars being the cost of of  abuse that our health care system so it's no wonder that these insurance companies all want to treat domestic violence as a preexisting condition and not pay for it when you consider a seven hundred fifty dollar families were a greater risk for her disease and other sorts of diseases you don't ordinarily associate with domestic violence and so again i think prevention is all of them having cultural competence services to make i notice that in the territories there's a higher rate of domestic violence and then i won't miss a live to tell us what happens to these families were unable to serve because of the dearth of funding in minnesota or the department of human services that a number of the tribes have begun a new collaboration over the last two or three years and their collaboration is really focused around trying to strengthen the tribes themselves to build capacity within the tribal community to provide outreach and services to the members of its tribes i think that overall in the system there's a continuing need for the personnel who work in the child welfare system to reflect the populations that they work with this is probably a good place to start in terms of reaching common ground in terms of understanding each other but i think it's basic appreciation that we are all different and we have to be very respectful of those differences and find ways to make sure there were approaching the work in a way that decreases my time expires so i want to make sure i push you toward answering my question i mean is there a consequence that we all need to know about in terms of not having culturally competent service yes you know this is an issue which creates so much shame and stigma and  a sense of wanting to keep this private and this behind closed doors concept and it's very difficult for people to reach out and make known that they even to be able to to feel safe doing so so it's extremely important that people have the ability to reach out in places that they're comfortable and cultural competence and cultural for millionaire ready and language familiarity certainly are critical for that because the important thing is to get people to reach you to reach out to you before the police you know come to the door because a neighbor heard a shot or someone screaming you want people to be able to reach for help and when they do come out for help or when they're brought for help you want them to feel safe and able to to communicate what their needs are and what's happening in their homes to themselves and their children with your indulgence could you please answer my second question what happens when there's no room in the shelter can you give us some examples of violence programs never turn somebody never say sorry we're busy call back tomorrow we don't have room however more and more we're seeing shelters including my own not able to meet the needs so we need to get very and we do that in every possible way we use much of our discretionary money on helping people pay for transportation medicine food you know that kind of thing so that they can be in some kind of emergency situation they can be relieved of it we have used motels with very short term stays we try to work with everyone to find is there a safe place for you to be we've transported people all over the country but we sometimes because that's the safest thing for them but also because sometimes we just don't have the resources and so we have to scrounge and find it's very difficult it's extremely difficult and sometimes people give up when they don't get the help they need right away and it just feels easier to just go back and that's terrible and we don't want that to happen that's why these resources a critical ok i yield back thank you madam chair thank you as you probably heard as you probably heard the bells are going off and  subcommittee anyhow but with that being that we're going to be down there for forty five minutes i want to thank each and every one of you for coming in it was heartbreaking testimony but it certainly gives us a good roadmap on what else we need to do as far as we go forward on the reauthorization we heard the testimony today about the importance of good prevention programs the need for good decisions and to be made made by our child welfare workers and the need to consider or appropriate avenues for families that are in crisis as we move towards reauthorization it's we will have our work cut out but by taking a comprehensive approach to abuse violence prevention children families and communities we will be helped by healthy a nation i want to thank again all our witnesses for being here today each of you have highlighted the very real concerns with access and the issues we need to focus on during the reauthorization process i want to mention that there has been a great deal of interest in this hearing and we have received many requests to submit written testimony i would also like to submit two reports for the record one from the national network to end domestic violence which provides a snapshot of the life of the lifesaving work of domestic violence services and shells across the country the second is called meeting survivors needs of multiple states study of domestic violence shelter experiences i'd also like to introduce the two zero zero seven series of a p r ticals on child sex abuse is in our schools without objection so what are i'd also like to  also expecting several of the groups will be submitting testimonies towards this as we go forward previously so watered members will have fourteen days to submit additional materials for the hearing record any member who wishes to submit follow up in questions in writing to the witness you should coordinate with the majority staff within the requested time without