By Chief Jim Graddon, City of SeaTac
By Chief Scott Kimerer, City of Burien
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES/NEWS

High profile cases of extreme child abuse grab our attention before other stories take center stage. Just last month, Josh Powell of Puyallup allegedly tried to hack his two sons to death before killing them and himself in a deadly house fire.

But for every child who dies at the hands of a homicidal adult, there are thousands involved in cases of tragic and, potentially deadly, abuse or neglect.

Child abuse and neglect remains a widespread problem in communities throughout Washington state and the entire country. In 2010, there were nearly 700,000 confirmed cases of abuse and neglect nationwide. Over 6,500 of these cases were in Washington state. The real numbers may be as much as three times higher since many incidents of abuse and neglect are never reported to authorities or formally documented.

One of the confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect in Washington State was an eight-year old from Burien. The child’s mother was a meth addict who gave her to a relative to raise. School officials were concerned about a facial injury to the child. School employees notified child protective workers, who revealed through further examination evidence of whippings that had been inflicted over time. The relative was convicted of felony assault and the child placed in a foster home.

These facts trouble us as police chiefs. The pain and suffering child abuse and neglect inflicts on innocent children troubles us. The emotional scars that many child abuse victims will carry for life trouble us. Research has shown that survivors of abuse or neglect are almost 30 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime, including abuse of their own children. Researchers estimate that as many as one-third of adults with a history of abuse may harm their own children.

The good news is that we know how to prevent many cases of child abuse and interrupt the cycle of violence. Intensive, voluntary home visiting programs pair nurses or other well-trained professionals with at-risk families, and the research they can cut child abuse and neglect by half among the most at-risk children.

Research on one program, the Nurse-Family Partnership, found that participation in the program cut abuse and neglect among at-risk kids nearly in half. By age 15, youth whose families were not served by the Nurse-Family Partnership had more than twice as many arrests. One site of the nurse home visitation service found significantly fewer cases of childhood injury, such as hospitalizations for broken bones and accidental ingestion of household items.

The Nurse-Family Partnership program is one of the key prevention strategies in the King County Gang Initiative. As law enforcement veterans, we believe there’s a critical need for us to fund these voluntary home visiting and family support services. If we can break the cycle of violence in families we also have a chance of breaking the multi-generational involvement in family violence and crime.

King County is using funding from this initiative to increase access to this service for low-income young women in Burien, SeaTac, Tukwila and White Center. With better access to public health resources and the guidance and support of a nurse home visitor, perhaps that young woman could have found drug rehabilitation treatment, stabilized her life and moved towards a healthier lifestyle. Perhaps, we could have saved that child from the abuse she suffered at the hands of a relative and helped that family stay together.

We can and must do more to prevent child abuse and neglect. From a child safety and a public safety perspective, we do have an obligation to invest in home visiting programs to protect children—and our communities—from the damage caused by abuse and neglect.