Budget jeopardizes abuse investigations

A.J. Lill broke into a grin as he squatted down to greet a 2-month-old girl.

Like most people with an affinity for children, Lill tickled her tummy and spoke warmly to the infant, who reclined contentedly in her baby swing.

But for Lill, this was more than a social visit.

He is one of four child abuse and neglect investigators at Erie County Job and Family Services. He is part of a thinning line of professionals doing everything they can to combat a growing number of child abuse cases while dealing with budget problems that jeopardize their mission.

Lill's eyes moved keenly across the sleepy baby's face, pausing over a faded bruise circling one of her big brown eyes.

The baby yawns, oblivious to the inspection, after Lill gets up to speak to her temporary guardian.

Little more than a week ago, Lill answered a middle-of-the-night phone call from nurses at Firelands Regional Medical Center. They had a baby with skull fractures and bleeding in her brain. The baby had to be flown to Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland for treatment.

The baby's mother told investigators the little girl rolled off a bed, but the story just doesn't add up. It would be difficult if not impossible, Lill knows, for the infant to sustain such severe injuries by rolling off a bed onto carpet.

Until investigators can determine what happened and set up a safety plan for the infant, she will stay with a relative. Lill frequently and randomly drops by her temporary home to make sure the baby is happy, healthy, and most importantly, safe.

Bigger Burdens

The 2-month-old "broken baby" is just one in a growing number of cases Lill and other investigators have seen this year.

Lill said he's witnessed an uptick in all kinds of cases, especially neglect and sexual abuse. The number of cases jumped 39 percent from 477 (involving 988 children) in 2007 to 661 cases (involving 1,316 children) in 2008, and the agency is on track to match that number this year.

Lill struggles to answer why.

"It's easy to blame the economy," he said.

Job loss, foreclosure, or other stresses at home sometimes cause parents to cross the line from discipline to abuse. Often, he said, the agency gets called in when parents turn to drugs or alcohol to numb their sorrows.

The same day he visited the baby with a skull fracture, he looked in on another family who's caring for a tiny 10-day-old girl who tested positive for cocaine.

He discussed with her caregivers how to look for signs of drug withdrawal in an infant who might have been addicted before she was even born.

Back at the agency office on West Parish Street, a mother who has struggled for years with alcohol abuse tried to bond with her son and daughter during an hour-long visitation. This was the third or fourth time the children found themselves bounced into a foster home. They have little knowledge of or control over the next turn their lives might take.

Staff at other area agencies deal with similar situations daily. If not an increase, directors say, the cases seem to be getting worse.

"The abuse is more severe," said Huron County Job and Family Services director, Theresa Alt. "We're seeing a lot of small children with broken bones."

The same seems to be reflected at state and national levels. While it's hard to find scientific data linking the poor economy with abuse and neglect cases, anecdotal evidence abounds.

"I think there are a couple of primary impacts that put children at great risk," said Chris Newlin, director of the National Children's Advocacy Center. "One, as families are struggling, they are undoubtedly more frustrated. Parents are dealing with all sorts of issues and they may be more liable to snap.

"And two, as families struggle they may not have the same resources. Parents may have to take on a second job, and might not be able to afford quality child care."

He said with agencies around the country swamped with cases, and states pinching every penny in thinning budgets, community churches and non-profit agencies are helping with things like meals and free child care.

"We can't sacrifice the well-being of children just because we know families are under a lot of stress," Newlin said.

Cut Centsless

Sacrificing the well-being of children is something Erie County Job and Family Services director Judy Englehart said she refuses to do, regardless of what devastation is visited upon the agency in Ohio's new budget.

She said if she has to, she'll pull the plug on preventive services -- even mandated ones -- to maintain basic needs such as food, shelter and safety.

State cuts to Job and Family Services include a 76 percent reduction in funding for child protection, which would carve a massive gap in child welfare investigations and monitoring.

State lawmakers plan to plug most of the hole with $42 million in tobacco settlement dollars. But approval for the state's use of the funds must go through the court system, and nobody knows how long that might take.

"We really don't know how it's