The number of children killed by their parents or caretakers in North Carolina has decreased in recent years, but a study released Tuesday suggests there is still work to be done, especially in military communities.
The two counties with the highest military populations – Cumberland and Onslow – account for the majority of child abuse deaths in the state, according to the study released by Action for Children North Carolina.
Those two counties account for 6 percent of child deaths up to age 10, according to the study, but 13 percent of the deaths by parents or guardians.
The report, “Collateral Damage on the Home Front: Ten Years Later,” found 251 homicides by parents or guardians between 2001 and 2010, a 13.6 percent decline from the last study, which looked at a 15-year span ending in 2000.
No such killings were reported in 35 of the state’s 100 counties, according to the report, and only seven counties had eight or more cases.
In Cumberland County, officials tallied the most such homicides, with 22 committed by a parent or caretaker, 10 of which were in active military families.
The study shows a rate of about 4.08 per 100,000 in Cumberland County and 1.9 per 100,000 statewide.
Its authors and officials from Fort Bragg and the Cumberland County Department of Social Services met to discuss the findings at a roundtable on the military post Tuesday afternoon.
Tom Vitaglione, a senior fellow at Action for Children, said he expected an increase in child homicides because of the stressful nature of the past decade of deployments of Fort Bragg soldiers.
Instead, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that the deaths among the military population had decreased faster than those in the civilian realm.
The new numbers represent a 16 percent decline among military families in Cumberland County over the last study and a 9.1 percent decline in civilian families, he said.
While the data is tragic – one North Carolina child has been killed by a parent or caretaker every two weeks over the past quarter century – Vitaglione characterized the study’s findings as positive.
“The rate has dropped in all cases,” he said. “And we’re happy to see reductions in the two counties with the toughest road.”
Officials at the roundtable praised one another for their work over the past decade but made clear that no one would rest on his laurels.
Brenda Jackson said agencies within Cumberland County, including Fort Bragg, have enjoyed open lines of communication and cooperation since the first study was released in 2004.
“The military is not separate and apart from our community,” Jackson said. “And it’s not just military families.”
Tom Hill, who heads Fort Bragg’s Family Advocacy Programs for its Army Community Service office, said the biggest challenge is simply educating parents on the help that is available to them.
He lauded a number of programs aimed at helping new parents relieve stress and provide a safe environment, including one for military families that includes in-home visits by Womack Army Medical Center nurses.
“It’s been the most challenging decade we’ve experienced,” Hill said. “But help is just a phone call away.”
Tom McCollum, a Fort Bragg spokesman, said a common misconception for soldiers is that calling for help will destroy their career.
Not true, he said. But acting out with abuse will.
“That will definitely hurt your career,” he said.
McCollum said the 10 deaths on Fort Bragg were tragic and caused by a number of issues, not all of which could be directly attributed to military service.
Those include mental illness, substance abuse, failures in medical screening and abuse by a stepparent or caregiver.
All involved children younger than 5 and six of the 10 were children younger than 2, he said.
McCollum said there is no evidence of a direct correlation between the number of deployments and the number of child homicides on Fort Bragg.
The Tuesday roundtable marked a very different response from the aftermath of the first study, Vitaglione said. He said Fort Bragg officials could have been characterized as defensive after the 2004 study.
“The acceptance was not great,” Vitaglione added.
In 2004, Action for Children, then known as the N.C. Child Advocacy Institute, released a study that showed children of military families in Cumberland County were 2.3 times more likely to be killed by their parents than children statewide.
That study found that children of military families died of abuse at an annual rate of 5 per 100,000 while the statewide rate was 2.2 deaths per 100,000.
But in the years since, the military has embraced efforts to cut down on child abuse and are well ahead of the state’s efforts, Vitaglione said.
“The military was not there,” he said of the earlier study. “Now what we have is the military gung-ho and the state struggling to keep up.”