Child abuse and neglect are longtime issues for Springfield.
"Unfortunately, we see a lot of it in southwest Missouri," said Megan Garrett, director of community collaboratives for the Community Partnership of the Ozarks.
She said the Community Focus Report has consistently marked child and abuse and neglect as a red flag issue for the city over the last two decades.
The Missouri Coalition for Children found that, between 2009 and 2022, only 47.9% of children placed in foster care in Greene County were returned to their homes. A total of 19.9% of those in care had five or more placements. The main reason for being placed in foster care was neglect (43.4%) followed by physical abuse (23.8%), sexual abuse (22.9%) and emotional abuse (9.9%).
Community Partnership’s Child Abuse and Neglect Collaborative is working to get ahead of the problem.
"That is a group of community stakeholders, community leaders, and they have advocates," she said. "It'll have some executive directors and case managers. We work with Children's Division as well as Greene County Juvenile Office as well who are all individuals who work around child abuse and neglect within the community and then come together to create larger change as a group than they can individually."
Garrett said they are sharing prevention messaging on social media this month. She encourages people to be informed, to know how to report child abuse and neglect and to find ways to support families before they reach a crisis. And she invites anyone to join in the collaborative’s conversations.
