New Telephone System Urged for Child-Abuse Calls

Orange County’s primary 24-hour child-abuse hotline is an outdated phone system in need of upgrades that include voicemail and automated menu options for quicker response times, according to a report released Wednesday by the Orange County Grand Jury.

A nine-month study conducted last year found that 15% of callers typically hang up after waiting more than two minutes.

“We consider that high,” said Bill Cook, a grand jury member and chairman of its juvenile services committee. “People weren’t getting through to social workers in a timely manner.”

The goal, Cook said, is to reduce the number of aborted calls and cut the waiting time to a minute or less.

Under the current phone system, implemented in 1994 after a previous grand jury review, callers can neither leave voice messages nor select automated menu options to route their calls. Social workers also cannot filter urgent child-abuse reports from non-abuse calls.

“At that time, the system was considered state-of-the-art,” said Michael Riley, director of Children and Family Services for the county. “So we already were considering upgrading our system. We hope to have a better system in place in a year, depending on the budget.”

Under the Social Services Agency, the county’s Child Abuse Registry operates with 32 senior social workers who cover the phones around the clock, with as many as 16 staffers receiving calls during peak hours from 4:30 to 11 p.m. and providing emergency responses as needed.

One tenacious caller waited on the line for 47 minutes before getting an answer, officials said.

The registry receives as many as 5,000 calls a month, half of which are abuse allegations and half requests for information and referral services, Riley said.

The grand jury’s recommendations include a system that would allow callers to select the language of choice and an automated voicemail system with options that could help route non-abuse calls, reducing demands on social workers. All calls now are answered in chronological order.

Mandated callers, who include professionals such as teachers, physicians and nurses, are required by law to report child-abuse cases by phone or fax.

There is no time limit on how long a social worker should spend with a caller.

“The purpose of the senior social worker is not to screen calls, but to get as much information from the caller as possible to determine if it’s a valid child-abuse allegation,” Riley said.

The agency has 60 days to respond to the grand jury’s findings and recommendations. The report also will be reviewed by the Board of Supervisors.