'More Egregious' Abuse Happening

Calls to Missouri's Child Abuse & Neglect Hotline dropped 50% in March. That was an ominous sign as children went from being seen in their schools to living in isolation.

With COVID-19 forcing schools to close, teachers and other mandatory reporters could no longer watch over children, looking for signs of abuse—signs, if spotted, they would be legally required to report. 

“I personally consider child abuse to be a public health crisis,” says Lisa Mizell, President & CEO of the Child Protection Center (CPC) in Kansas City. “And it was a public health crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Like Mizell, Rochell Parker, Executive Director for the Child Abuse Prevention Association (CAPA), which has offices in Kansas City and Independence, believes the stressors associated with COVID-19 are almost certainly triggering more abuse.

“Child abuse doesn’t automatically mean it’s the parents who are doing the abusing,” Parker points out, “so for children being abused by someone outside the home the pandemic may have, in a way, saved them. But if the parents are the abusers, these children might be trapped.”

And in June the CPC experienced a surge in calls for its staff to interview abuse victims—to acquire the statements police would need to make arrests. 

"The abuse, physical and sexual, we've been seeing since the pandemic is much more egregious," says Mizell. "It's terrible."

» 'Safe Places To Turn To' For Families In Abusive Situations