The State Department of Human Services has released its 2024 Child Protective Services report, revealing a significant increase in child abuse reports across the Commonwealth.

In 2024, there were over 700 more reports of child abuse compared to the previous year, marking a continued rise in cases since the pandemic.

Haven Evans, Director of Programs for the PA Family Support Alliance, said that the total number of reports has been increasing steadily post-pandemic.

“As we’re coming out of that pandemic,” said Evans. “There’s more eyes on the children. There’s more programs that children are involved in.”

The report indicates that while the number of reports increased, the percentage of cases substantiated by law enforcement decreased slightly by 0.1%. The rate of substantiated cases is higher in rural counties such as Elk, Huntingdon, and Somerset.

“So some of those counties, especially like Elk, there are very few children in those counties compared to some of the other counties,” Evans said. “So any difference in the numbers is going to be reflected as a larger percentage.”

The report also highlighted that most reports involved children aged 5 to 9, a vulnerable age group more likely to be in school and able to communicate about abuse. The report documented 60 fatalities and 82 near deaths due to abuse in 2024, with common types of abuse including sexual abuse, injury-causing abuse, and neglect.

Evans emphasized that the rise in reporting is positive, as more people are learning to recognize and report signs of abuse.

“We have a role that we can play in this to learn about how to recognize and then go about reporting child abuse at the time that it is suspected,” Evans said.

All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by WTAJ. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by WTAJ staff before being published.

From WTAJ, August 25, 2025