Prevent Child Abuse America wrote in 2001 that the total estimated direct cost (costs associated with the immediate needs of abused and neglected children) of abuse and neglect is more than $24 billion annually. The indirect cost (costs associated with long-term/secondary effects of abuse and neglect) is estimated at more than $94 billion annually. Because the 2005 Texas Department of Family and Protective Services note that the United States spend $238 million a day on these direct and indirect costs, that means the annual costs are equivalent to $1,461.66 per U.S. family. This makes child abuse and neglect everyone's problem.

Child abuse and neglect cut across every ethnic, economic and geographic boundary in Dallas County. According to the Texas Commission on Children and Youth, being abused or neglected as a child increases the odds of arrest as a juvenile by 53%, as an adult by 38%, and for violent crime by 38%. Children who grow up in violent homes are six times as likely to commit suicide, 24 times as likely to commit sexual assault, and 50 times as likely to abuse drugs or alcohol. Most tragic of all, they are likely to perpetuate the cycle of abuse; adults abused as children are six times as likely to abuse their own children. In 2003, there were more than 131,130 investigations of child abuse and neglect by Child Protective Services in Texas (2005 Data Book, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services).

These are staggering statistics. Current proposals looking to improve the plight of children in Texas are focusing on the youngest children, three years old and younger. While the youngest children are the most vulnerable, all children deserve a safe place to live and the opportunity to grow up to be successful adults. There are very few sliding fee scale beds and no free programs for adolescents who need assistance. By the time a girl reaches adolescence, no matter what she is enduring, there is only a slight chance that she will receive help.

For the children who do receive services, the trend in Texas is to place more children in home-based foster families. However, for many adolescents, a new foster home placement will fail due to the conflict between bonding with a new family and their developmental needs to establish their own identities separate from their caregivers. Unfortunately, once a placement fails, these children are often in need of a more structured environment due to experiencing yet another failure.

Boys, who act out in ways that threaten our safety, are more likely to receive funding than girls, who act out by hurting themselves. Nationally, only 5.2 percent of the money given to private foundations goes to grants that benefit women and girls. In Dallas, the amount drops to 2 percent, according to the Dallas Women's Foundation. These funding realities reinforce the importance of Our Friends' Place in providing care for abused and neglected girls. Since these girls will be the next generation of caretakers for their children, the pattern of abuse, neglect, and violence must be broken.
 

Did you know?
Parents continue to be the main perpetrators of child maltreatment, and the most common pattern of maltreatment (45 percent) was a child victimized by a female parent acting alone?