AUSTIN, Texas — April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, a time when communities can better focus on spotting the signs of abuse and neglect and detecting when parents might need support or resources.
Mark Wilson with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) said every Texan is now considered a mandatory reporter of suspected child abuse – whether you're a teacher, family friend, church member or neighbor.
In 2023, there were 58,000 confirmed child victims of abuse and neglect in Texas. Of those, 1,800 were in Travis County.
Wilson said the easiest way to report abuse is to call the 24-hour DFPS hotline at 1-800-252-5400. He said while you can't remain anonymous, your information will remain confidential.
He also said if you believe a child is in imminent danger, you should call 911.
"What we see, especially in some of the worst cases we see, are those involving child fatalities," Wilson said. "About half of those cases, we had no prior involvement, so we didn't have the ability to know something is going on – that someone needed help. That's why it's so important to pick up and make the call if something is going on,"
Reinaldo Martinez is a Child Protective Services (CPS) investigator in Central Texas. He places calls and visits locations after reports come through.
"Common signs can be slipping of the grades, behavioral changes, marks and bruises, children acting out towards other children," Martinez said.
Learn more about the current statistics and data on child neglect and abuse across Texas.
And catch this full story on KVUE Midday at 11 a.m. Friday.
KVUE launched the Forever Families segment with Partnerships for Children (PFC) in June 2020 to highlight children in the Heart Gallery of Central Texas who need secure and permanent families. Every day, there are nearly 1,000 children waiting to get adopted in Central Texas, according to PFC.
Editor's note: The children who are in the Heart Gallery program and featured in KVUE's Forever Families segments are children who have had every effort made on their behalf to connect them with family or others in their community to provide options for permanent, adoptive homes. Through no fault of their own, that hasn’t happened yet, and so in partnership with the Department of Family and Protective Services, we collaborate to bring awareness to KVUE viewers about these children in the hopes of finding them permanency before they age out.