The Numbers:
Protecting Children Is a National Priority
The Children’s Bureau uses the term victim of maltreatment for a child whom a state has determined to be a victim of abuse or neglect following a child protective services assessment or investigation. In the federal reporting system, this generally means that at least one allegation of maltreatment was substantiated or indicated under the laws and procedures of the reporting state.
Child maltreatment can include physical abuse, sexual abuse or exploitation, neglect, emotional maltreatment, and other acts or failures to act that place a child at risk of harm. While definitions and legal procedures vary somewhat by state, the federal reporting system provides an important picture of cases known to child protective services agencies across the country.
In federal fiscal year 2023, child protective services agencies received an estimated 4.399 million referrals involving approximately 7.782 million children. About 3.082 million children received either an investigation or an alternative response from a child welfare agency. States identified 546,159 children as victims of child maltreatment—approximately 7.4 children per 1,000 in the child population.[acf +1]
These numbers are more than statistics. Every number represents a child: a child who may need safety, stability, protection, care, and someone willing to take their experience seriously.
The statistics also do not represent every child who has been harmed. They reflect reports received by child protective services and cases identified through state child-welfare systems. Some children never come to the attention of a school, medical provider, neighbor, law-enforcement officer, mandated reporter, or child protective services agency. Others may be unable or afraid to disclose what is happening to them.
More than half a million children identified as victims of maltreatment in one year should concern every person in this country. A decline in reported or identified cases is welcome, but it cannot be mistaken for a final solution. Every child deserves to grow up with safety, care, protection, and the opportunity to develop into a healthy adult.
Why It Matters
Early childhood is a critical period of development. Children learn about trust, safety, relationships, communication, emotions, and their own worth through their earliest experiences. When those experiences include abuse, neglect, violence, instability, abandonment, or fear, the effects can continue long after childhood.
A child who has experienced trauma may struggle with learning, relationships, emotional regulation, self-worth, trust, housing stability, employment, or involvement with systems such as schools, healthcare, child welfare, treatment, or the justice system. These struggles should not be treated as proof that a person is bad, broken, lazy, or beyond help.
Often, they are signs that a child or adult survivor has endured harm without receiving the safety, support, understanding, or healing opportunities they needed.
At GraceUSA, we believe survivors should not be defined by what happened to them or by the ways they learned to survive. Every survivor deserves dignity, compassion, respect, and the opportunity to heal.
A Shared Responsibility
Child maltreatment is not only a CPS issue, a court issue, a school issue, or a government issue. It is a community issue.
Protecting children requires action from parents, relatives, neighbors, schools, healthcare providers, child-welfare professionals, law-enforcement agencies, faith communities, employers, nonprofit organizations, local leaders, and government at every level. It also requires communities to listen to survivors and recognize that prevention is stronger than waiting until serious harm has already occurred.
Many families face overwhelming pressures that can make it harder to provide the stability children need. These pressures may include poverty, unsafe housing, food insecurity, lack of transportation, untreated mental-health needs, substance-use challenges, family violence, social isolation, lack of childcare, unemployment, and limited access to practical support.
Recognizing those pressures does not excuse abuse or neglect. It does, however, help communities understand where earlier support, safer systems, accountability, and effective intervention can make a difference.
We must build communities in which families can ask for help before a crisis becomes harm—and where children can be heard, protected, and supported when harm has occurred.
Prevention and Healing
The solutions will not be simple, but they are necessary. We must invest in prevention, strengthen families, improve access to support, and ensure that child-serving systems respond with care and accountability.
Meaningful prevention and recovery efforts can include:
• Safe and stable housing for families.
• Access to food, transportation, childcare, healthcare, and mental-health services.
• Trauma-informed schools, medical providers, child-welfare agencies, courts, and treatment programs.
• Education that helps adults recognize signs of abuse, neglect, coercion, exploitation, and trauma.
• Support for parents and caregivers who need help managing stress, poverty, isolation, addiction, or mental-health challenges.
• Clear reporting pathways and responsive child-protection systems.
• Survivor-centered services that respect privacy, dignity, choice, and safety.
• Long-term support for adult survivors whose early trauma continues to affect their lives.
GraceUSA believes that protecting children and supporting survivors strengthens families and communities. When children are safe, when survivors are heard, and when families have meaningful support, communities have a better chance to become healthier, safer, and more stable.
The Work Before Us
The work of preventing child abuse and neglect belongs to all of us. It cannot be left only to child protective services, law enforcement, courts, schools, hospitals, or nonprofit organizations. Those systems have essential roles, but every person has a role in helping create safer homes, safer neighborhoods, and safer futures for children.
Each decision we make can affect someone else. Acts of care, honesty, protection, encouragement, and accountability can create positive ripples that reach farther than we may ever see. In the same way, harm that is ignored can continue from one person to another and from one generation to the next.
We must choose to interrupt that cycle.
We must be willing to see children as worthy of protection, survivors as worthy of support, and families as worthy of practical help before the worst outcomes occur.
More than half a million children were identified as victims of maltreatment in the United States during fiscal year 2023. That is not a problem for someone else to solve. It is a call to action for all of us.
GraceUSA is committed to education, awareness, advocacy, and support for survivors of abuse, with particular attention to the lasting effects of early childhood abuse. We believe that no child should be forgotten, no survivor should be dismissed, and no community should accept preventable harm as normal.
Protecting children is a shared responsibility. Supporting survivors is a shared responsibility. Building safer communities is a shared responsibility.
Notes and Sources
Terminology.
This chapter uses the term “victim of maltreatment” because it is the term used in Children’s Bureau and National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System reporting. It refers to children identified by a state as victims following child-welfare assessment or investigation processes. The criteria, legal standards, and terminology may vary by state.
-
Limits of the data. The national figures in this chapter describe child abuse and neglect known to child protective services agencies. They do not measure every instance of abuse or neglect occurring in the United States. A referral is an allegation or concern reported to a child welfare agency; it is not automatically a substantiated finding of maltreatment.
Federal fiscal year. Federal fiscal year 2023 ran from October 1, 2022, through September 30, 2023.
National child-maltreatment figures. In FY 2023, an estimated 4.399 million referrals were made to CPS agencies, involving approximately 7.782 million children. A total of 3,081,715 children received an investigation or alternative response, and 546,159 children were identified as victims of child maltreatment. The national victimization rate was approximately 7.4 victims per 1,000 children.[acf +2]
Primary source. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau. Child Maltreatment 2023. Released January 8, 2025. The annual report presents national data on child abuse and neglect known to state child protective services agencies and is based on information reported through the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS).[acf +2]
Editorial note for GraceUSA.
This chapter expresses GraceUSA’s values and advocacy position. Statements about the effects of childhood trauma are intended as general educational information and are not medical, mental-health, legal, or crisis advice. A reader in immediate danger should call 911. A person seeking confidential crisis support in the United States may call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or contact local emergency, child-protection, domestic-violence, or sexual-assault resources.