Steve Scott: Preventing Child Abuse

by Karol Crosbie

The state of Iowa is 10th highest in the nation in the number of reported child abuse cases. At first blush, this fact could look very bad to Steve Scott ’69, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Iowa. But his reaction to Iowa’s ranking is as complex and analytical as the work that he does.

Steve Scott, who lobbies members of the Iowa legislature on behalf of families and children, studies in the law library at the Iowa Capitol Building in Des Moines.

Scott’s law degree and experience as an attorney prompt him to look at the data from many angles. Why would Iowa, with its relatively lower levels of crime and poverty, rank higher than say, Illinois, with its crime-ridden Chicago? The key, says Scott, is in the word “reported.” More people living in Iowa believe that state authorities will respond to their concerns, and therefore they are more likely to file a complaint, he explains. In contrast, a neighbor in Chicago may make no report because she believes that authorities—who are perceived as overworked and unresponsive— will do nothing.

Also, people mentally adjust what they consider to be unacceptable. “There’s an interesting theory that says that humans can only deal with so much deviancy,” says Scott. “If levels of deviancy grow too large, we respond by redefining what we consider deviant.”

But given that caveat, child abuse rates are higher in Iowa than in states with similar levels of civic engagement and similar demographics, says Scott. And child abuse has been on the rise in recent years in Iowa and in many other states.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is solid evidence that much child abuse can be prevented, says Scott, whose organization oversees 174 prevention projects in Iowa. Scott and his colleagues advocate for the most important ingredient in keeping children safe: Healthy families. One of Scott’s primary jobs is to lobby the state legislature for funding for programs such as crisis nurseries, parent education, respite care, and young parent support. In the last legislative session, his organization’s efforts helped secure additional funding for child sexual abuse prevention programs, leading to a major expansion of classes on how to protect children.

Daily, Scott is faced with the conundrum prompted by the phrase child abuse. “When you say ‘child abuse,’ shutters come down. The words evoke images of such horror that you can’t even have a discussion,” he says. “If you’re a young family needing support, are you likely to want to attend a class called, ‘Preventing Child Abuse?’” In fact, in Iowa, only 6 percent of abuse cases in 2006 involved sexual abuse, and 10 percent involved physical injury. By contrast, approximately 70 percent of all abuse cases in Iowa involve neglect.

But while changing the words “preventing child abuse” to a more positive phrase, such as “building healthy families,” might be more effective for serving clients, state funding would probably suffer, says Scott. “If you become this nice, familywholeness project, it becomes so amorphous that legislators don’t know what you do. While the words ‘child abuse’ shut down dialogue, they also grab people in the gut.”

Why are levels of child neglect and abuse on the rise nationally? Again, Scott is faced with a puzzle. While sensibilities may prompt a neighbor to pick up the phone and file a complaint, that’s where civic engagement ends. Nationwide, volunteerism is down, and support from the extended family has plummeted. “Our mantra is, ‘Protecting children is everyone’s responsibility,’ but the reality is that measures of civic participation are on the decline,” says Scott. “Increasingly, individuals and families are isolated.”

With a goal of turning this phenomenon around, Scott’s organization recently formed a partnership with AmeriCorps, in which 10 staff members recruit volunteers to help neighborhoods and communities create support systems for families.

Scott has a long history of concern for the disenfranchised. For his Independent Study at Wooster, he studied the suppression of the Industrial Workers of the World, a labor union for immigrants and farm workers in the early 1900s. His decision to respond to the draft in 1970 by registering as a religious conscientious objector was highly influenced by his Wooster experience, he says. His alternative military service at a community center in Indianapolis piqued Scott’s interest in using legal aid to achieve social justice. He pursued a law degree at the University of Pennsylvania, where he researched the needs of people with disabilities and went on to become deputy director of the Minnesota Disability Law Center. He has been at his current position since 1996.

Professionals and volunteers who help parents to prevent disaster, rather than picking up the broken pieces after a tempest strikes, avoid much of the heartache that comes from being in the center of the storm, says Scott. But prevention work comes with its own pressures. “No matter what we do with families, it will never be a vaccine equivalent. It’s not like you can give a blood test and say, ‘OK, this parent is free of the germ of child abuse.’

“There is never automatic certainty. And that’s challenging.”