CHARLESTON — More West Virginia kids are ending up at one of the Mountain State’s 21 Children’s Advocacy Centers to be evaluated for potential abuse including physical abuse and neglect.
“The majority of the kids that we see are kids who we think are victims of child sexual abuse, but we also evaluate kids for all forms of maltreatment,” said Maureen Runyon, coordinator for the CAMC Children’s Advocacy Center in Charleston.
During the fiscal year that ended on June 30, her site saw 543 children which was a 24 percent increase over the prior year.
“It is very significant,” Runyon said of the numbers that topped a previous high of 519 kids served during the 2015 fiscal year which came before the opening of additional Children’s Advocacy Centers elsewhere in West Virginia.
“If the correlation between the drug epidemic and child abuse is real then, unfortunately, we don’t see that trailing off anytime soon and so my expectation is that our numbers will probably continue to go up, at least in the next couple of years,” she told MetroNews.
Nationally, the number of children being reported to authorities for possible child abuse has decreased.
In addition to the opioid epidemic, Runyon said heightened awareness and education of adults about signs of child abuse may be a factor in West Virginia’s reported increases.
Statewide, the number of children seen at Children’s Advocacy Centers, or CACs, increased by 13.57 percent during the 2018 Fiscal Year, according to information the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network released Tuesday.
The full report is available HERE.
In the past five years, evaluation of kids at West Virginia CACs has grown by 69 percent with services provided to 4,445 children total.
“This data helps show we aren’t done elevating the conversation about child abuse in West Virginia,” said Emily Chittendon-Laird, executive director of the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network, in a statement.
In 99 percent of the cases in West Virginia, alleged abuse offenders were people the child knew, the data showed.
A parent was the alleged offender in 44 percent of cases.
Many times, Runyon said, children have been removed from the care of their parents across West Virginia because of parental drug issues.
“Once they get into a home with either a relative or foster parent, they start talking about other things that were going on in the home besides the drug use,” she said.
Children’s Advocacy Centers are designed as child-friendly facilities in which child protection, criminal justice and child treatment professionals can work together to investigate alleged abuse and begin to take steps to address a child’s needs after trauma.
Forensic interviews and medical evaluations are conducted.
“As adults, we don’t think about what that experience is like for a kid,” Runyon said of the abuse young victims are asked to detail.
The CAMC Children’s Advocacy Center is located at Charleston Area Medical Center’s Women and Children’s Hospital. It serves Kanawha County, Jackson County and Putnam County but, Runyon said, no child is ever refused treatment or evaluation.
The 21 existing centers cover 42 counties.
Within the next five years, the goal of the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network is to expand services statewide.
By Shauna Johnson
