Abuse of Latino children increasing

Associated Press:

Warning that symptoms of child abuse are present among young, impoverished Latinos, child welfare experts on Tuesday urged the state to invest in pre-emptive services in targeted neighborhoods.

Recommendations that the state step up prevention efforts for Latinos comes amid data showing a tripling of the number of Latino children in foster care in five years — 1,431 children as of January, up from 449 in 1999. State Labor statistics show a young and fast-growing Latino population, nearly 20 percent of whom live in poverty, all indicators for potential abuse.

"The poverty in the Latino community and the youthfulness of our population suggests that our children are at great risk of abuse, but this is not reflected in the implementation of the state plan," Daniel Santo Pietro, executive director of the Hispanic Directors Association of New Jersey, said, referring to a court-ordered plan to reform the state's child welfare system.

The state agreed to overhaul the Division of Youth and Family Services in 2003 as part of a settlement with a child advocacy group that sued claiming the agency was putting some children it was supposed to protect in harm's way. Two reports this week criticize the slow pace of reforms.

"Prevention is acknowledged as a cornerstone of the state reform plan, but it is, at best, an afterthought in the implementation process," the Latino experts said in their report. The Office of Children's Services' $724 million budget for the current fiscal year contains just $25 million for the Division of Prevention and Community Partnerships.

DYFS spokesman Andy Williams said the recommendations will be evaluated and considered.

"If they're making the point that Hispanics are a growing part of the population and we have to do a better job of serving them, I would agree with that," Williams said. He noted efforts to recruit bilingual foster parents in two northern counties and said, "We probably need to do more of that."

Feeling left out of the reform effort, Latino leaders commissioned a panel of child welfare experts to make recommendations that would benefit Latinos, said Frank Argote-Freyre, who helped compile the report.

The report, released Tuesday, focuses on preventive services child welfare officials can integrate into Latino communities, including funding eight community collaboratives in at-risk neighborhoods. That initiative would cost at least $1.2 million.

Such collaboratives — community-based organizations that can provide information and services — are embraced in the state's reform plan, though Latino leaders say most are located in poor black communities with high percentages of child abuse cases and DYFS interventions. There are no collaboratives in the Latino strongholds of Perth Amboy, Passaic, Elizabeth, West New York or New Brunswick.

Is this another "benefit" or immigration?