Colorado is among the top 15 states in terms of per-capita spending on child welfare, and yet deaths of children due to abuse and maltreatment increased 40 percent between 2001 and 2007, according to a report by the nonprofit child-advocacy group Every Child Matters.
Despite statewide budget cuts, top child-welfare advocates in Colorado say they’ll spend $1 million next year to make sure social workers are adequately trained to identify and intervene in abuse cases — before they result in death.
Abuse is on the rise across the nation, according to the report, which used the latest government data available to track the number of deaths of children attributed to maltreatment.
Nationwide, 1,760 children died from maltreatment in 2007, up from 1,300 in 2001. In Colorado, 179 cases of child abuse resulting in death were reported between 2001 and 2007; in 2007, there were 28, up from 20 in 2001.
Local child-protection experts say that Colorado saw the red flag in 2007, when 13 children died from child abuse after their cases had been reported to county child-protection services.
These deaths included Chandler Grafner, 7, who starved to death in the care of his mother’s ex-boyfriend and his wife; and 3-year-old Niveah Gallegos, who investigators say was killed by her mother’s boyfriend, who had been accused of sexually assaulting the child.
Responding in part to those high-profile deaths, the Child Welfare Action Committee was created. Earlier this month, the committee delivered its second report to Gov. Bill Ritter, listing more than a dozen recommendations on how to strengthen child-protection services in the state, including a professionals-staffed central hotline for reporting suspected abuse.
National push kicks off
Liz McDonough, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services, said Colorado is committed to tackling the problem of child deaths from maltreatment.
“In one of the worst budget years Colorado has seen in decades, Colorado has moved forward and created the Child Welfare Training Academy, which opens in January,” she said.
More than $1 million has been allocated, because inadequate training was identified as a key problem in those 13 deaths in 2007.
In addition to a new training academy, the state allocation for child welfare has increased every year since 2006, when the budget was $384.5 million, McDonough said. This year’s budget is $425.5 million.
The new report, “We Can Do Better: Child Abuse and Neglect Deaths in America,” is being released today to kick off two days of meetings in Washington of top national leaders in child protection, law enforcement, education and policy making. The goal of the report and the meetings is to highlight child abuse and neglect as a national problem that requires a national strategy, along with an increase of federal funding.
“There’s only so much Colorado can do,” said Dr. Kathryn Wells, a child-abuse pediatrician at Denver Health who also is a member of the Child Welfare Action Committee. “Talking about a national call to action, what the federal government can do, is critical. It goes beyond counties and states. This is a national issue.”
U.S. lags peer countries
It has been 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt held the first White House conference on children’s issues, but the U.S. still lags behind other wealthy democracies in terms of combatting child-abuse fatalities.
The child-abuse death rate in the United States is 12 times higher than in Italy and 2.4 times higher than in Canada.
The social policies of these other countries invest more in preventive measures that support families, such as child care and universal health insurance, according to the report.
“We are one of the richest and most industrialized countries in the world, yet we fare poorly against other industrialized countries in how safe our children are,” Wells said. “At times we don’t understand or appreciate that the future of this country is our children. We’re putting our resources in other things.”
Colorado showing progress
State advocates, however, are pleased with recent progress.
“Times are tough, but I think the state has stepped up in this rough time to improve things,” McDonough said.
She said it will be hard to completely eradicate deaths due to child abuse, despite all the recent efforts, “but we can continue in the Child Welfare Action Committee to examine all parts of the system, and ask, ‘How can we make it better?’ “
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
