Defense Department officials say they are digging into the potential factors behind a recent increase in child neglect, and building more preventive programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Incidents of child neglect in the military last year were up\u00a014 percent over 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We’re looking into why,” Kathy Robertson, the department’s Family Advocacy Program manager, said in a recent briefing to the DoD Family Readiness Council. “Why did we have this huge increase in child neglect? What does it mean?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials have proposed a DoD-wide study on military-related risk factors for child neglect\u00a0to help shore up future prevention efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the civilian world, such factors include\u00a0unemployment, financial problems and lack of housing. But in the military, at least one person in the family is always employed, and the\u00a0military always provides for housing for troops and their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense officials will address questions of whether more resources and personnel are needed for family advocacy initiatives, and an expert has been hired\u00a0to do a data process analysis, reviewing whether available data reflects both parents being involved in neglect of\u00a0a child, possibly following the return of the active-duty member from deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to DoD data, 63 percent of the child abuse and neglect cases in 2014 fell into the neglect\u00a0category. The two most prevalent forms of child neglect are lack of supervision\u00a0and exposure to physical hazards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Substantiated child abuse and neglect incidents among military families\u00a0totaled\u00a07,676 last year, an increase of 687 over 2013.\u00a0In addition to the 63 percent of cases categorized as neglect,\u00a0\u00a021 percent involved physical abuse, 12 percent involved emotional abuse and 4 percent involved sexual abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of Oct. 1, officials are using a\u00a0new system to evaluate the severity of incidents, with an objective severity scale to gauge the case as\u00a0mild, moderate or severe. Officials say that will help identify trends\u00a0and inform determinations on whether, and where,\u00a0more resources may be needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
cut for space can follow up more later: kj In fiscal 2014, there were 30 children who died from child abuse and neglect. Two of those victims were previously reported to FAP, and five alleged abusers were previously reported to FAP. Most of the children were under the age of 5; 18 were less than 1 year old. There were 20 active duty members who were \u00a0allegedly involved in the deaths. In fiscal 2013, 31 children died from child abuse and neglect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every military installation with command-sponsored families, both in the continental U.S. and overseas, has a family advocacy office, and there are more than\u00a0over <\/span>2,000 family advocacy staff members worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Family advocacy officials are part of a coordinated community response system that also includes military and civilian law enforcement, civilian Child Protective Services, civilian and military medical personnel, chaplains, and others with a role to play in preventing, identifying and responding to problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While DoD is required to report incidents of child abuse and neglect to civilian CPS officials, those officials are\u00a0not required to inform DoD when they’re working on incidents involving military families \u2014 an issue on which the\u00a0DoD State Liaison Office has been contacting state legislators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defense officials have taken some new measures to prevent child neglect, including launching a new social media campaign aimed at raising awareness of resources to protect and strengthen military families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other new initiatives include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Previously launched educational campaigns focus on “safe sleeping” to prevent accidental death when the mother or father falls asleep while nursing or holding the baby; and electronic distractions where child abuse or neglect happens when parents are hooked on gaming or other activities involving electronic devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For decades, the services have had New Parent Support programs in place, helping young families properly care for their babies. Robertson said officials track families for a year after they finish the program, and 96 percent do not have an incident of child abuse or neglect over that span.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Defense officials are digging into reasons behind an increase in child neglect, and adding more preventive programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":103554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":88,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3299],"class_list":["post-116324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"527LO2JKNZCGLOPBC3ANB2BZ3M","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-military\/2015\/10\/08\/dod-targeting-child-neglect-with-research-programs\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n