Auditor: Child abuse complaint hotline shows improvement
HARRISBURG (AP) – Pennsylvania’s chief fiscal watchdog says a hotline that handles reports of suspected child abuse has seen “tremendous improvement.”
The Auditor General’s Office said in May that 22 percent of calls to ChildLine went unanswered last year compared to 4 percent in 2014.
Auditor General Eugene DePasquale on Wednesday said that number fell to 11 percent over the first half of 2016.
New laws to prevent child abuse took effect in January 2015, increasing calls to ChildLine.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services Secretary Ted Dallas has said they’ve added staff, upgraded training and improved technology so that all calls are recorded and they’re easier to process.
Dallas says the rate of abandoned or disconnected calls to ChildLine has fallen below 2 percent compared to 43 percent in January 2015.