Investigations into child mistreatment, including neglect and physical and sexual abuse, skyrocketed in Montgomery County during January, as school and child-welfare workers reacted to the discovery of four children’s corpses in the District, officials said.
Montgomery Health and Human Services leaders told a council panel Monday that they believe the spike stems from the case of Banita Jacks, who is accused of murdering her four daughters after District Child and Family Services Agency employees failed to follow up on warnings of trouble in the family’s Southeast home.
Child Welfare Services officials in Montgomery said the rate of new investigations in January was up 40 percent over the average of the previous nine months. Officials said there was no corresponding spike in actual incidents of abuse.
“We feel it’s a direct response to what happened in D.C.,” Child Welfare Services Director Agnes Leshner said.
In Washington, the high-profile January arrest spurred a fourfold increase in calls to the agency’s child protection hot line, a tripling of investigations into child abuse and neglect, and a doubling of children removed from their homes.
Montgomery did not see spikes in children removed from their homes, but the number of children receiving in-home services in January did hit its highest point — 215 cases — during the past nine months for which data were provided.
Leshner said Child Welfare Services has 10 vacant positions, including five social worker spots, and that retention remains a problem for the county.
“We’ve managed,” Leshner said. “People are tired and feeling overwhelmed, but we haven’t had any resignations during the past month.”
Officials said a notable difference between the District and the affluent Maryland suburban jurisdiction is that Montgomery employs an ombudsman whom teachers can ask to intervene in situations where they feel an allegation of abuse hasn’t been taken seriously enough.
“The problem that D.C. faces are that services have been so disjointed for so long,” County Council member Duchy Trachtenberg said. “You had people in the health department and the school system making the calls but still this happened. Here there is a clearer system of checks and balances.”
