Op-Ed: Pa. Task Force Recommendations pave Way for Stronger Abuse Laws
By Debra Schilling Wolfe
The Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection recently released its report calling for sweeping reform in how the state responds to reports of child abuse. The numbers tell the story: 11 Pennsylvania professionals, representing all corners of the state and many of the fields that touch the lives of victims of child abuse, released a comprehensive report in excess of 400 pages, after meeting on 17 separate occasions, holding 11 public hearings across the commonwealth and hearing testimony from more than 60 experts.
With the support of legislative staff, they incorporated research on how every other state addresses the problem.
While some people were leery about another commission, all appointed by elected officials in a highly partisan environment, the task force was comprised of committed private citizens. Volunteering their time for the greater good, they took on a seemingly insurmountable task under immense public pressure and, lo and behold, did the right thing.
They kept their eye on the prize, in the words of the task force chair, District Attorney David Heckler, “to improve the protection of children first and above all else.”
What resulted was an unprecedented set of recommendations to completely overhaul how child abuse reports are handled in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
From changing how child abuse is statutorily defined, amending who is mandated by law to report and recommending critically needed training, to changes in the criminal code, supporting technology to share information and calling for the establishment of child advocacy centers within reach of every child in Pennsylvania, this disparate group of individuals worked through vastly differing views and perspectives and were able to compromise and reach consensus on what the citizenry truly needed.
As task force appointee and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Child Abuse and Neglect Committee Dr. Cindy Christian put it, “we worked for the protection of children, not for the convenience of adults.”
The task force acted in a nonpartisan manner and refused to be swayed by special interests.
In short, it was driven solely by the needs of constituents.
Many of us have been concerned about Pennsylvania’s dismal response to child abuse and neglect for a long time, long before the tragedy at Penn State came to light.
Pennsylvania has the distinction of being dead last in the nation in the rate of substantiating child abuse reports.
The statewide child abuse hotline was missing one out of every 10 calls.
The statutory definition of child abuse was so flawed that doctors could make a medical diagnosis of child abuse yet child welfare workers couldn’t.
And, as in the case of Mike McQueary at Penn State, someone who worked in an institution and suspected child abuse was only required to report up the chain of command, but not report their concerns to the child abuse hotline, leaving the system ripe for cases falling through the cracks.
In a tragic misstep, observation of sexual abuse in the shower on campus reportedly was interpreted as “horseplay in the locker room” by administrators.
With implementation of the task force recommendations, all of this could be about to change.
The work of the task force not only offers the opportunity for Pennsylvania to become a model of how to better protect its children, it serves as a model for the nation on how government can work by the people and for the people.
Our federal government has some of its most challenging days ahead. It is time to put partisanship and special interests behind us and do the work of the people.
The success of Pennsylvania’s Task Force on Child Protection, its work complete and the task force disbanded less than a year after it was empaneled, demonstrates how some of our greatest challenges can be addressed when the needs of the public are put front and center.
Washington should look north to see what can be done when individual needs and partisan politics come second to caring about the fragile future of our citizenry.
Debra Schilling Wolfe is the executive director of the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research at the University of Pennsylvania.
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