BY RANDY ELLIS, rellis@opubco.com
Published: January 9, 2011
Oklahoma has cut its child death rate from abuse and neglect nearly in
half in four years and no longer ranks among the worst states in the
nation.
“That's a good trend,” said Deborah Smith, director of the
children and family services division for the Oklahoma Department of
Human Services.
Still, workers view any deaths as too many, she said.
Records show 22 Oklahoma children died from abuse and neglect in 2009,
giving the state a death rate of 2.39 per 100,000 children, according
to a recently released national report titled “Child Maltreatment
2009.”
That's a dramatic improvement from 2005 when Oklahoma had the worst
child death rate from abuse and neglect in the nation — 4.63 per
100,000 children. Records show 41 Oklahoma child deaths from
maltreatment were recorded that year.
Oklahoma's 2009 death rate is lower than 14 other states and the
District of Columbia, but slightly above the national child abuse and
neglect death rate of 2.34 per 100,000 children.
Oklahoma ranked even better than the national average in several other
important statistical categories including its verified rate of abused
and neglected children — 8.3 per 1,000 children vs. a national
average of 10.1.
Officials caution about drawing too many conclusions from comparing
states' maltreatment rates because different states have different
definitions of what constitutes abuse and neglect. Smith said Oklahoma
has a more inclusive definition than the majority of states, so
she believes it is more difficult for Oklahoma to achieve a low rate.
The improvement in Oklahoma's child maltreatment statistics is
particularly impressive since it occurred during a downturn in the
economy, Smith said. More families are under financial stress and such
stress often is linked to higher rates of child abuse, she said.
....Smith said she believes state workers are doing a better job of
screening out calls that don't need DHS intervention, which gives
workers more time and resources to focus on cases where help is
needed.
DHS has allocated more resources to providing preventive services and
to developing safety plans and services for troubled homes. That has
resulted in many children remaining in homes in situations where
they might have been removed in the past, she said.
In cases where children have been removed and reuniting families is
deemed undesirable, DHS has pushed to speed up the adoption
process, she said.
The combination of those efforts has resulted in a 35 percent
decrease of Oklahoma children in out-of-home care within the past
three years, Smith said.
The decrease in foster children gives workers more time to focus on
those that remain. FULL
STORY
"Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again". -Will and Ariel Durant
