Scioto County CPS Investigates 90 Sex Abuse Cases in 3 Months.
The head of Scioto County CPS revealed that the agency is investigating what she called a “shocking number” of reports of child sexual abuse.
So just how is Scioto County’s long-troubled Children Services doing now that the agency has been absorbed by Scioto County Jobs and Family Service? At Thursday’s Scioto County Commissioners‘ meeting, Director Tammy Moore Morton said, “I will repeat this every time you hear from me,” Morton said. “This is a long-term process. I want everyone to be aware of that. It’s like we’re moving a mountain one rock at a time, well lately, that mountain feels like there’s an earthquake hitting it and it’s on fire.”
Director Moore said she plans to offer quarterly updates on the state of the agency to share the progress that’s being made in rebuilding an agency that was once so troubled the state stepped in and took it over.
There are currently 352 children in the care of the agency. Morton said Scioto County CPS received 561 complaints of neglect or abuse in the first three months of 2023. “The most alarming increase in those referrals is the increase in sexual abuse cases. This is shocking. We had 20 sexual abuse reports in January, 22 in February, and 45 in March.” (Some of those reports involved multiple children)
Morton said that all of those complaints did not turn into active cases but that it’s still an overwhelming number of complaints to deal with. She said that this alarming increase isn’t limited to Scioto County. Other agency directors across the region have reported that their numbers are on the rise.
The director said that Scioto County SVU was “hot and heavy” on dealing with these complaints and that she was very proud of the team’s efforts. “We’re really making a difference.”
She told commissioners that placement costs for the children in care were $623,000 for the month of March. So far this year, 37 children have been removed from their homes by the agency.
Morton said the agency was working with local law enforcement, courts, and other agencies to clearly define each agency’s role when it comes to dealing with child abuse and neglect. “Once this is implemented, it will serve as a roadmap as to how cases will be processed. I don’t think that’s something that has ever existed before.”
She said the agency was currently working on updating its policy manual since most of the procedures in place are left over from the 1990s. “It’s a slow process, but we want to do it right.”
