GRACE USA

The Children’s Bureau defines a child treatment victim as any child under 18 who is the subject of a substantiated or indicated maltreatment report, typically involving abuse or neglect committed by a parent, caregiver, or another person in a custodial or authoritative role.

This definition is used for nationwide statistics and legal interventions, aligning with the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA).[cwoutcomes.acf.hhs +2]

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Definition Breakdown

• Physical abuse: Any non-accidental physical harm or injury inflicted by a responsible adult, such as hitting, choking, or burning.[childwelfare +1]

• Sexual abuse/exploitation: The subjection of a child to acts of sexual conduct, solicitation, or exploitation—including trafficking, pornography, or prostitution—by someone in a position of trust or authority.[tedibear.ecu +1]

• Neglect: Failure to provide basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, medical care, protection, or supervision, resulting in actual or potential harm to physical or mental health.[childwelfare +1]

• Emotional/psychological maltreatment: Consistent, deliberate infliction of mental abuse that impairs the child’s emotional development or psychological capacity.[tedibear.ecu +1]

• Abandonment: Leaving a child without necessary parental or caregiver support or supervision.[childwelfare] Reporting and Victimization A child meets the treatment victim definition when child protective services (CPS) determines the abuse or neglect allegation is substantiated following investigation, triggering legal intervention and possible assignment of advocates or court-appointed representatives in accordance with federal requirements.[cwla +1] The definition is used across states, with some local differences, but always encompasses these core categories of maltreatment. All children meeting this criteria are formally considered victims by the Children’s Bureau, regardless of gender, age, or background.

 

The Children’s Bureau reports that in fiscal year 2023, Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies in the United States received a national estimate of 4,399,000 total referrals, representing about 7.78 million children. Of these, CPS agencies responded to approximately 3.1 million children, and many of these referrals resulted in new cases being opened for investigation or services.[cwla +1]

 

CPS Case Statistics

• Total CPS referrals in 2023: 4,399,000 (about 7.78 million children involved).[cwla]

• Children receiving a CPS response in 2023: About 3.1 million.[govdelivery]

• Victims of maltreatment identified: 546,159 children determined to be victims in 2023.[govdelivery +1]

• Annual trend: The number of victims and cases investigated has steadily decreased since 2019, though new cases and child responses remain in the millions each year.[cwla]

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The national trend in CPS case openings over the last decade shows a moderate decline in both the number of children investigated and confirmed as victims of maltreatment.

 

In 2013, there were over 3.2 million children subject to CPS responses, with around 679,000 confirmed victims of maltreatment. By 2023, investigations dropped to about 3.1 million children, and the number of confirmed victims was approximately 546,159—a decrease of about 19.3% from 2019 alone.[cwla +1] Key Decade Trend Highlights

• Case volume: CPS case openings peaked near 3.4 million responses annually during the mid-2010s but have slowly decreased, with the rate stabilizing below 3.2 million since 2020.[aecf +1]

• Victim confirmation: The annual number of confirmed child maltreatment victims declined by nearly 125,000 between 2015 and 2022, countering earlier increases before 2015.[aecf]

• Rate per population: The national rate of confirmed victims has averaged 7–8 per 1,000 children, staying steady with slight variations rather than sharp increases or decreases, except in states such as North Carolina and Iowa, which saw rises.[aecf]

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Improved screening, alternative response models, and backlog resolution have contributed to the gradual decline in new CPS case openings and substantiated investigations over the past decade.[cwla +1]

 

546,159 is the number of confirmed child victims in 2023 and according to CPS is a notable decline from even 2019.

 

If we cannot do better than over half a million new cases in 2023 that CPS has confirmed as abuse in the United States of America than we will as a group, the citizens of these United States, have much work to do if ever we wish to think of ourselves as a first world nation. On top of that the results of our inaction may destroy this country and the sacrifices that have been made by so many of our loved ones and strangers alike will be to support a failing cause no matter what their sacrifice was or the purity of their intentions.

 

GraceUSA believes that this particular situation, the rate of child abuse in our country is the most important factor in determining our chances of having successful communities. How can it not be? Our beginnings rule us just like any other mammal is ruled by their exposures during their developmental stage of life. We don’t need to uncover all the terrible data points and facts that can be mined from the NCANDS, CPS or the Administration of Children and families (ACF) records to see that something horrible is destroying our nation from the inside out and each generation of abused children who grow to adults knows less and less how wrong their treatment was due to no way to compare the differences as the islands these abused children grow and grow to larger percentages of each community.

 

The solutions won’t be easy and the sacrifices in the early stages of this type of change will likely be whatever it is going to be but the price of non-action can include everything we know and love.

 

The price may include something worst than the death of us all. What could that be? Imagine if enough children grow to adults and due to familiarity and the comfort zones that familiarity brings we accept and adopt this treatment of children for ourselves and encouraged the similar treatment to the children of other places. We could never be responsible for that type of change? Really? The voting class of our great nation has side stepped this growing threat to our national security for all of our history and because of this fact, America has largely turned a blind eye to the issues that allow this problem to grow with a few of the major contributing factors being our current criminal justice system as well as the commitment to those who work within it, the presence of big business along with their lobbying and insistence that they continue making money in the ways they are regardless of the effect on the rest of us and our monetary goals that we have and need to have both individually and as communities. 

 

It’s actually this simple: if we can’t find much better ways to raise healthier and more stable citizens from birth we will need much bigger jails, many more missiles and more bullets than can be counted as well as being prepared to be robbed and or our loved ones to be hurt more often as each year goes by. Jan 1 2024 began with 546,159 children having been freshly deemed abused in 2023 and with a whole new squad of children that will be abused and reported about to spring forth and we roughly know how many and where they will be Concentrated and what would be needed to stem the problems that are about to cause this undetermined number of children to be abused in some way (housing concerns, legal concerns, financial concerns, lack of transportation, absence of career paths, diminishing hopes for future etc…) and yet nobody is really doing anything outside of working incredibly hard just to break even on the statistics from years past and never having a real game changing break-thru that protected a large group or percentage of children that I’m aware of since the creation of CPS.

 

Let’s set aside that number and think if well over half a million cases were reported about how many went unreported and of those cases that never came to light which often times can be the most extreme due to the completeness of the abuse cycle and lack of intervention and to those children we owe the deepest apologies and most dedicated efforts to make up for and heal the type of harm that we know occurs in those extreme cases. Total is how some would view the harm that occurs to a child who has survived countless felony level assaults of various types and never receives the experiences needed to heal afterwards.

 

Total harm.

 

Among other things that means we all owe much much more than we acknowledge to our worst and most violent offenders, to our citizens who grew up to simply do what they were taught when young as we all do tho what they learned when young is antisocial and or illegal in nature and they simply mimic what they learned, again, as we all do. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree is another way to say something similar.

 

We hope that bringing this topic of the importance of protecting our children, increasing their rights and protections from birth and helping adult survivors when they need help is necessary to stem the tide of the growing sentiment that nothing is getting better, nothing will ever change and that it does no good to try to improve things. The growing number of households each year that have no options to help themselves or their kids from not continuing the very cycle of harm that defeated them and past generations and while a greater and greater divide grows between them and those who are nearly unaware of those circumstances and conditions increases there will be a tipping point that we must at all cost avoid reaching.

 

Imagine the effect if over half the voting population in our county was more prone to abusive tendencies and how that mentality could leech into our laws, cultures, relationships with other cultures and our very hearts.

 

This fight started long ago and what side is growing faster? This is not a CPS problem or a government problem and there is nobody truly handling it and so to put off focusing on our inability as a group to raise our children in a healthy nurturing way and thinking someone else will address it is purely selfish, anti productive and will make the battle that much more difficult for those trying to save us all with their efforts and sacrifices. Each decision each day we all make sends ripples into the world that keep going and going. The things that harm others that we do will keep harming them and those that the ripples bounce off only to hit others and harm them as well and that cycle will continue and continue just as abuse is passed from person to people. Stealing, swearing, fibbing and cheating that are so common place in our culture breed open mindedness to things a little worst.

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If these issues don’t constitute a national emergency then what does it take?

 

For this reason GraceUSA who respects all religions or lack of religions but does not support anythings that creates negative energy would like to suggest that we need to change how Santa is celebrated and or presented to our children due to Santa being the first lie in our country that most children will be exposed to and also discovered as a lie. It’s not like we in the United States of America have an issue lying to each other and or ourselves right?