Pa. touts improvements to child-abuse hotline
HARRISBURG - Months after being criticized as unresponsive or slow to answer callers, a state child-abuse hotline has added employees, improved training, and implemented technology changes, officials said Thursday.
HARRISBURG - Months after being criticized as unresponsive or slow to answer callers, a state child-abuse hotline has added employees, improved training, and implemented technology changes, officials said Thursday.
The Department of Human Services acknowledged that the ChildLine hotline had been overwhelmed by a 14 percent, year-over-year increase in call volume after new or more stringent child protection laws went into effect in early 2015. It said it lacked the resources and staff to handle the surge.
With the improvements, only 2 percent of callers to the hotline don't reach a caseworker, according to the department.
ChildLine staffing has grown from 48 employees (42 of them caseworkers) in January 2015 to the current 81 employees (72 of them caseworkers), said DHS spokeswoman Kait Gillis.
The department received an additional $1.8 million for ChildLine in the state budget this year, she said.
The improvements "represent the highest performance levels since 24 new bills that amended the child protection law went into effect in January 2015," Ted Dallas, Human Services secretary, said in a statement.
The department's goal is to keep the rate of unanswered calls under 4 percent, Dallas said in an interview.
In July, ChildLine received 11,457 calls, down from 13,877 in July 2015, Gillis said. (The year-to-year drop for the previous month was less pronounced, with 12,162 calls in June 2016, compared with 12,432 calls in June 2015.)
In May, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale reported that thousands of ChildLine callers since 2014 had hung up or been disconnected before reaching a caseworker. He said that 22 percent of calls in 2015 - nearly 42,000 - were unanswered, up from 4 percent in 2014.
In a statement Thursday, DePasquale applauded the improvements.
"I am pleased to hear that DHS took our interim report recommendations seriously and implemented changes that could help save children's lives," he said.
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