Childhood | National Affairs nationalaffairs.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nationalaffairs.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
email article
, which focuses on the stories of vulnerable communities. The first story explored how COVID-19 has affected young adults aging out of the foster care system; the second focused on grandparents raising kin; and the third was on how the pandemic impacted parents and reunification efforts.
The pandemic, its associated isolation, and economic challenges prompted child welfare to sound the alarm: COVID-19 will likely result in a spike in child abuse.
But whether such a trend is certain fact or educated intuition is still open to question. Complete data won t be available until mid-2021, at the earliest.
Some experts fear that at-risk children won t be seen because stay-at-home orders are keeping them away from the watchful gaze of mandated reporters, especially teachers, who report one in five cases of suspected abuse and neglect to hotlines and responsible agencies.