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"It's to help children" | Childhelp encourages more schools to add child abuse resources

This after the Oak Ridge Board of Education discussed appointing a child abuse coordinator in every school to streamline reporting — something Childhelp pushed for.

TENNESSEE, USA — While state agencies report that child abuse reports are going down, it's a different story for Childhelp. Nationally, calls to their hotline are going up.

"It's well over 40 percent of what we've seen increase nationwide," Childhelp's Eddie Smith said. 

As students head back into the classroom, he said schools are gonna have to reevaluate their resources.

"The pandemic could end tomorrow but the effects of COVID-19 are going to continue for years to come as students begin to open up about what happened to them," Smith said. 

Schools are starting to see that in East Tennessee. The Oak Ridge Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution at first reading. If it passes a second reading it would require each school in the school system to appoint a child abuse coordinator and an alternate child abuse coordinator.

A spokesperson with the Oak Ridge School system said the resolution would streamline the process, meaning once a child reports what happened to them, that report would go to one point-person who would then take it to the Department of Children Services or to the police.

This comes after Childhelp filed legislation addressing this, creating a single contact for abuse cases in each school and separate investigation records from school records. It passed in June and went into effect on August 1.

"It's to help children get in touch with law enforcement or state DCS," he said. 

While all Tennesseans are mandatory reporters, Smith said teachers often take on much of the burden, which he believes more resources and streamlining in schools could help.

"We want them to be able to focus on educating our kids and let those individuals that specialize in investigating child abuse, do their job so that our teachers can get back to teaching," he said. 

The Oak Ridge resolution still has to pass a second reading before going into effect, but Smith said even after schools adopt this measure the work still continues.

"At the end of the day what our goal is the children that have been abused, neglected, sexually abused, that they get the help they need as soon as possible," Smith said. 

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