Jerry Sandusky is shown in this file photo. New Jersey’s child abuse hotline has been flooded with phone calls since news of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal broke late last year, according to Children and Families Commissioner Allison Blake. TRENTON — New Jersey's child abuse hotline has been flooded with phone calls since the Penn State sexual abuse scandal shocked the nation late last year, according to Children and Families Commissioner Allison Blake.
The number of calls soared to as many as 750 a day in November, when a Pennsylvania grand jury indicted former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, said Kristine Brown, spokeswoman for the state Department of Children and Families. It rarely topped 400 a day in the two months before the scandal broke out, she added.
As of last month, calls were in the 600 to 700 a-day range. And from November to last month, the hotline answered a total of 80,543 calls — 6,815 more than the previous year.
"When you look back on major cases like that that made the news, you will find they increase awareness," said Cecilia Zalkin, executive director of Advocates for Children of New Jersey. "A situation (where) people might have had concerns about a neighbor or a family member, it may encourage them to stop and think and take action."
The message following the Penn State scandal may have registered more deeply in New Jersey, where the law requires anyone having "reasonable cause" to suspect child abuse or neglect to report it. Violators could face six months in jail or a fine of $1,000.
"Preventing child abuse is everyone’s concern. Reporting suspected abuse or neglect is the first step in potentially saving a child’s life," Blake said at a recent event commemorating April as child abuse prevention month.
Pennsylvania law is not as expansive, placing the legal responsibility to notify authorities of suspected child abuse on "mandated reporters" such as teachers, doctors, coaches and other professionals who come into regular contact with children.
"I would like to believe we would not have a Penn State situation here," Blake said at a recent Assembly budget committee hearing.
Sandusky, 68, who faces more than 50 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years, has denied the claims. The revelations prompted the firing of longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and university President Graham Spanier.
High-profile child abuse cases have always elicited a reaction at the child welfare system’s front door, regardless of whether the children are from New Jersey, said Judith Meltzer, a federal court-appointed monitor examining the child welfare system under terms of a class-action lawsuit settlement. "People’s awareness of the issue of child abuse and neglect has to be a good thing. I believe child protection has to be a community responsibility."
But the added traffic to the hotline taxed a child welfare system that already shouldered an increasing number of calls last year.
"Intake" workers, who investigate allegations deemed credible by the hotline employees, exceeded their maximum caseload last year, according to Meltzer’s most recent monitoring report. The agreement requires 95 percent of intake workers to handle no more than 12 cases and get assigned no more than eight new cases a month. Only 84 percent met that standard from January 2011 to June 2011.
In September and October, the hotline referred approximately 1,500 cases per week for investigation. But after the Sandusky scandal broke, "reports to the field climbed as high as 1,770 per week in November, and 1,730 per week in December and steadied at more than 1,600 per week to date," Brown said.
Senate Budget Committee member Nellie Pou (D-Passaic) grilled Blake about the rising caseloads during a budget hearing Thursday. The increasing caseload "certainly started before the Penn State allegations," she said. "It might have peaked after, but it was certainly in place already."
Blake said the department responded over the past four months by assigning 10 four-member "impact teams" to the busiest offices, and assigning more people to work the phones
There is no evidence yet to say the calls are translating into a new wave of children entering foster care, or new families falling under the supervision of the Division of Youth and Family Services, the formal name of the state’s child welfare system, said Zalkind. Last September, there were 7,135 children in foster care compared to 10,432 in December 2007, according to state data cited in a Kids Count report Zalkind’s group released last week that examined child health, safety and economic stability.
"If you look at the data, they are getting more calls and doing more investigations, but it does not appear to be bringing more kids into the system," Zalkind said. That’s a good thing, if the callers’ tips are getting the proper scrutiny, she said.
Last May, a rookie hotline employee decided a caller’s information about the sickly appearance of two children in Irvington did not merit an investigation. Nine days later, police found 8-year-old Christiana Glenn had died at home from malnutrition and an untreated broken leg. Blake fired the hotline manager and allows only more experienced workers to work the hotline.
Zalkind said the law’s requirement to make everyone equally responsible for reporting child abuse is working. "Every time an issue comes up like this, the consensus is we want to err on the side of protecting children," she said.
The state’s child abuse hotline is 1-877 NJ ABUSE.