The topic of child abuse has been a social issue for almost all of time. Finding research on this issue can be somewhat tricky. When child abuse became more of a prevalent issue in history, many newspapers reported the issue and how towns and states would handle the situations. Eventually, and over time, child abuse began to receive a negative connotation and the issue became hidden and less talked about publicly. For my research, with the help of my lovely professor, I was able to find research and statistics about child abuse and child abuse cases in new Jersey.  

Using data from the New Jersey Department of Children and Families allowed me to gain quantitative results about child abuse. The Child Abuse and Neglect in New Jersey Statistical Report shows data for the year 2004 in New Jersey. This file provides a clearly defined definition of child abuse as well as detailed statistics. With this data in particular, I am able to find the number of abuse and neglect referrals received by DYFS, which counties reported the most or least cases of child abuse per year, and where the highest number of allegations or referrals came from- school staff. This pdf file allows me to use its statistical data to fulfill my website, as well as compare the statistics of New Jersey to the statistics of the United States. The one concern I have with this file of information is that it is from 2004, approximately 16 years old. Times are constantly changing in regards to social issues and while I can use this data, I can also compare it to data from more recent years to see how child abuse has either increased or decreased over the years. 

Additionally being found from nj.gov, the file Supporting Strong Families and Communities in New Jersey: Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect, 2014-2017 provides valuable information about child abuse. Initially, I can use this source for information about risk factors, protective factors, as well as more statistics. There is a particular chart, Figure 1, that shows the breakup of types of child abuse and neglect in 2012. Again while this data is a little out-dated, it is a good reference for basic information on the topic. 

One of my other sources for statistical data is the New Jersey Department of Children and Families’ Commissioner’s Monthly Report for March 2020. This Data is up to date and relevant. It shows statistics for children in out-of-home placement, number of referrals compared to past years, response times to the reports, how often workers visit the children, and medical statistics for children who are victims or have ongoing and pending cases. This information will help the statistics aspect of my website a lot. 

These three sources will help me analyze my topic over time, specifically the past 16 years. They also provide very clear data that is easy to work with. This data can also be typed into a google sheets file and put into Tableau. I can use this to show the ratio of number of cases in New Jersey to the number of cases in the USA.

“DCF: Commissioner’s Monthly Reports.” DCF | Commissioner’s Monthly Reports, www.nj.gov/dcf/childdata/continuous/.

“DCF: Families.” DCF | Families, www.nj.gov/dcf/families/.