Mitigating COVID-19’s Rural Impact on Families At-Risk for Violence and Child Maltreatment and Neglect

Researchers at the Rural Health Information Hub share emerging strategies for mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 situation on rural child maltreatment and neglect. Though child maltreatment reports have fallen dramatically, researchers suggest this is due to reduced contact with potential reporters, rather than an actual reduction in child abuse and neglect. Nonprofit domestic violence clinics in Oregon have pivoted to new methods of connecting during the pandemic, including providing website chat boxes which are safer than a text chain on a personal phone that may be monitored by the abuser. #covid-19