My Local Children's Hospital shows exactly what's wrong with CPS/DHS

I found this article published by a local new station

Local Children's Hospital reports steady increase in child abuse-related trauma

"Children's Hospital Colorado reports that child abuse is now the second-highest cause for children to come to their emergency department, reporting that the numbers continue to rise month-over-month since the pandemic began. Non-accidental trauma, or child abuse, accounts for 11.7% of the trauma cases seen at the hospital."

Colorado has seen a influx of child abuse in recent years, but in 2020 hotlines to report child abuse saw a significant decrease in reports starting in March when remote learning started. Yet our hospitals are seen a rise in child abuse related injuries in their emergency rooms. In 2019 the child abuse tip hotline in Colorado reported they had seen an record breaking amount of child abuse reports in 2018, unfortunately I cant find any more recent data.

April Jenkins is a Children Youth and Family Services Intake Manager for DHS. She says she has been a decrease in cases but a increase of severity. When faced with working children who have been seriously injured and hospitalized because of injuries caused by abuse she had this to say:

"It's very sad. It's very concerning," Jenkins said. "It's also evidence that the families in our community are having a hard time and they're really stressed and they're really struggling."

"Jenkins emphasized that the Department of Human Services is focused on preserving families as much as possible, and helping them thrive. They offer a plethora of services available for parents and families who might be struggling."

A Social Worker for Childrens Hospital had this to say about the rise in cases

"The impact of the pandemic has been widespread as we experience a number of stressors, including children being out of school or out of daycare, we see parents and families that have lost their employment or they're facing housing insecurity, all of those things lead to an increase in family stress that can come out in unhealthy ways at different times,"

DHS and CPS are focused on preserving families, I can tell you from my own experience. While that's fine and a good goal to have, their first priority should be preventing kids being hurt. Yet time and time again I see kids in my state being abused and should be removed from the home but are put in family preservation services. I reported physical, verbal, and sexual abuse as well as neglect. It took them over two weeks to talk to me and about another 2 weeks to talk to my custodial parent. Once the social workers were manipulated into thinking I was crazy and incompetent they dismissed the case, putting us in family preservation therapy that only half the family participated in. They are so focused on preserving the family, they are enabling abuse.

CPS and DHS need to stop trying to salvage the family and focus on protecting kids, their parents, and the community. The longer they focus on "preserving the family" the longer they're actually preserving the abuse.