DSS: South Carolina child abuse and neglect deaths up

COLUMBIA — The number of South Carolina children dying from abuse and neglect increased to 28 last year, the state’s child welfare agency reported Tuesday.

The State Department of Social Services also says that the number of children served by DSS as a result of an indicated report of abuse or neglect increased to 20,309 in 2015 from 16,794 for 2014.  The number of fatalities as a percentage of all children served by the agency remained about constant from 2014 to 2015, DSS reported.

Tuesday’s numbers, posted to the agency’s website, compare to 22 children who died in 2014, 25 in 2013 and 14 in 2012, according to DSS. The agency, until Thursday, had reported 24 deaths in 2013 but said that number was in error.

“Anyone who has worked in child welfare knows that the hardest part of a caseworker’s job is learning of and responding to child fatalities that result from abuse and neglect,” DSS Director Susan Alford said in a statement to The Greenville News. “It is a dagger to the heart, regardless of whether DSS had prior involvement with that child. Our responsibility is to not only seriously review the circumstances in which fatalities occur, and improve our case practice to provider better safety nets for children at risk, but to also educate the public about the ways in which they can help in the prevention of child fatalities in this state.”

According to the state Department of Social Services, the number of complaints of child abuse and neglect received by the agency went from 27,370 in 2012 to 30,950 in 2014 and 40,463 in 2015.

The number of investigations in child abuse and neglect, meanwhile, jumped from 13,218 in 2012 to 16,501 in 2014 and 23,347 last year.

DSS officials have argued that most of the increase is because of a new, centralized reporting system which includes toll-free numbers that was enacted in some parts of the state last year.

Of the 28 deaths, DSS said in four cases it had indicated reports of abuse or neglect on the family in the last year.  In seven cases, the agency said, it had such reports on the family within the past five years.  In some cases it had no reports.

“As demonstrated in the chart above, there are cases in which the family was not known to the Department of Social Services through a prior indicated case,” DSS said in a footnote to the data. “Some families only become known to the agency because of the child’s death, providing no opportunity or authority for agency intervention. These cases indicate a critical need for the communities of South Carolina to engage in the work of child abuse prevention.”

Sue Williams, chief executive officer of the Children’s Trust of South Carolina, said “the time is now” for strengthening the protections for children and families in the state.

“We are not just talking about how we address a single child in crisis,” she said. “Rather, how do we strengthen families across our state and ensure that communities have the resources and training they need? We all have a critical prevention role to play – from families to community organizations to state leaders – to ensure our children are safe from abuse, neglect and injuries.”

The agency said Tuesday’s numbers also reflect an increase in unsafe sleeping deaths of infants, a concern because most deaths from abuse and neglect occur in the earliest ages.

“All parents, grandparents, babysitters, child-care workers and anyone else putting a child younger than 1 year old to sleep needs to know and understand the ABCs of safe sleep,” Williams said.  “Alone, on their back and in a crib free from toys, crib bumpers, blankets and other items. Following these simple steps will save lives and prevent death from unsafe sleep practices.”  

Sen. Joel Lourie, a Columbia Democrat and member of the Senate DSS Oversight Committee, said one death from child abuse or neglect is “too many.”

“Yes, I’m very concerned that the numbers are going up,” he said. “But I would also tell you I think it involves more than just getting the agency the resources it needs. It involves working with law enforcement and educating the public in general so that people understand that we all have a moral and ethical responsibility if we believe we witness some level of child abuse, to make the phone call so that the proper agency can get out there and prevent a tragedy from happening.”

Several child abuse deaths have been reported this year and a North Carolina woman was charged Tuesday with murder after authorities found her 6-week-old son drowned in a pond behind a Myrtle Beach outlet mall.

During the past fiscal year, more investigations of physical abuse, 371, and sexual abuse, 47, were founded in Greenville County than any other county of the state, according to DSS. Greenville County was second only to Charleston last year in the number of founded cases of neglect. More complaints of abuse and neglect originated in Greenville County, 3,751, than any other county in the state.

The Senate DSS Oversight Committee has spent the past three years delving into the issue of child abuse and neglect and how DSS has handled such complaints. In a series of sometimes dramatic public hearings, senators heard testimony of children who were abused and died, of overworked caseworkers and severe staff turnover rates.  A scathing report by the Legislative Audit Council in October 2014 found that thousands of the state’s children were victims of abuse or neglect and some even died after DSS chose to refer their cases to community prevention programs instead of investigating them.

Since then, a new director of the agency has been at work making changes, the system for receiving child abuse and neglect allegations has been centralized in some parts of the state, and hundreds of caseworkers have been hired in an effort to reduce caseloads to a new standard.  

“We have received support from the legislature to create local rapid response child fatality review teams, to examine the causes of a child fatality,” Alford said, “but we have to develop well-coordinated interagency efforts in public health, health care, and substance abuse to get at the prevention of child fatalities, especially for infants and toddlers in this state.”