RELEASE: June 30, 2004

Previous Screen

Centralized Screening of Child Abuse and Neglect Reports Debuts July 1, 2004
New Hotline, 1-877-NJ ABUSE, Established for DYFS Calls

The Division of Youth and Family Services will establish a call screening center and a new hotline for reporting child abuse and neglect tomorrow as an initial step in a sweeping reform of the child welfare system, Commissioner James Davy announced.

The call center will operate 24 hours a day, every day of the year, replacing local screeners at more than 30 DYFS district offices and the current after-hours and weekend hotline. About 40 screeners will staff the center on weekdays, assessing child abuse and neglect allegations from across the state.

“In the past, DYFS’ response to a report might depend on who answered the call,” Davy said. “The goal of this centralized screening operation is to ensure that DYFS evaluates and responds to every report consistently and appropriately, wherever and whenever it happens.”

The call center also will allow DYFS to track every call that comes in, which cannot be done reliably under the current system. Better tracking will allow DYFS to identify trends, manage its caseload, and assess whether it is responding appropriately to child abuse and neglect reports.

The new hotline number – 1-877-NJ ABUSE (652-2873) – will begin operating tomorrow. Calls to toll-free numbers that serve the district offices and the current hotline will be redirected to the screening center. DYFS will initiate a campaign to publicize the new number this summer.

DYFS Director Ed Cotton has been personally training the screeners and supervisors who will staff the new center. About 40 screeners will be on duty weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., the peak calling time. Overnight and weekend shifts will have up to eight screeners at a time.

Most of the screeners are veteran DYFS workers with experience screening calls at the district offices, the Institutional Abuse Investigations Unit, or the current after-hours hotline.

The screening process will be somewhat different, as the screeners will have clear, specific guidance on assessing reports. Eventually, they also will have access to a greater assortment of community-based programs to serve families without putting them on the DYFS caseload.

“For the past 18 months, the DYFS caseload expanded so rapidly we could barely keep up with it,” Davy said. “One of the reasons is that we were opening some cases that did not really warrant DYFS investigations. As a result, our workers were hard-pressed to give the proper attention to children who are truly at risk.”

Under the child welfare reform plan, each county in New Jersey will establish a community collaborative – an organization that will foster the development of programs to support families and prevent child abuse and neglect.

When that system is in place, calls about child welfare concerns that do not rise to the level of child abuse or neglect can be referred to a collaborative and then to a community-based service provider.

Meanwhile, DYFS workers will continue to respond to child welfare calls, assess the children’s safety and, when appropriate, refer families to services that already exist in the community.

“The system of referring non-abuse and neglect calls to community agencies will help keep kids safe,” Davy said, “because our investigators and caseworkers will be able to focus on children who are at risk of harm or who already have been abused or neglected.”

The new call center will open in an office complex outside Trenton, but will move to a new permanent location at DYFS’ Central Office building in downtown Trenton by September.

The centralized screening operation is expected to increase costs by about $1 million this year, primarily to cover the cost of renovations and furniture and the campaign to publicize the new hotline number.

Last year, DYFS received nearly 89,000 calls alleging abuse and neglect or reporting concerns with children and families. That was a significant increase over prior years, when DYFS received an average of 78,000 calls a year.

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