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Finalist: Community Achievement In Health Care
IU Child Protection Program at Riley Hospital for Children (IUCPP)
Nothing makes Dr. Roberta Hibbard and her team happier than ruling out child abuse as a factor in a young patient’s medical condition.
Sadly, that’s not always the case. The maltreatment of children is a fact of life that has kept Hibbard and her colleagues at the IU Child Protection Program at Riley Hospital for Children busy more than 30 years. The team of five physicians, three social workers, two nurses and a nurse practitioner, along with their support staff, consult on about 6,000 suspected cases of abuse a year statewide.
Typically, less than 30 percent of those cases involve abuse, Hibbard said. Many injuries are the result of accidents. And some children who it seems might be victims of neglect in fact have an underlying medical condition that hasn’t been detected.
From left in front row, Lisa Emberton, Chanin Smith, Andrew Campbell, Lori Hines and Jenny Stanbery. From left in back, Jennifer Norris, Barbie Mulvaney, Dr. Ralph Hicks, Dr. Roberta Hibbard, Dr. Shannon Thompson, Dr. Tara Harris and Dr. Catherine Huber (IBJ photo/Eric Learned)Indeed, determining when abuse and neglect are not involved is a big part of the child protection team’s job. So is intervening when there really is a problem. And sharing that expertise statewide has made IUCPP the heart of a wide-ranging network of professionals working to keep children safe.
“The many services offered by the program have helped countless children and families … by providing medical evaluations … providing consultation and education to community leaders who deal with abuse victims, and offering counseling and parent education for families,” said Loretta Rush, chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, who worked with IUCPP when she was a juvenile court judge in Tippecanoe County.
IUCPP went statewide in 2008. Since then, its largely grant-funded budget has doubled to more than $2 million a year as it has expanded its menu of services beyond medical evaluations and crisis counseling. It educates law enforcement, the Indiana Department of Child Services staff, health care providers, judges, attorneys and others who interact with cases of child abuse and neglect through a series of new programs, including Docs INCASE.
Docs INCASE (Doctors for Indiana Child Abuse Screening and Education) is a network of 18 pediatricians throughout the state who now serve on local child protection and child fatality review teams who have been trained by IUCPP to handle decisions and care locally.
“Being able to access Dr. Hibbard and her colleagues’ counsel on challenging clinical and social questions is a tremendous benefit to clinicians throughout the state. Their expertise and availability is of immense value to so many children,” said James Bien, a general pediatrician in Lafayette who became part of the Docs INCASE team.
As IUCPP’s programs have spread their message across the state, it’s become more common for the staff to receive calls from doctors in need of consultation.
The role of the medical community in child protection has come a long way in 30 years. Hibbard recalls an early meeting with someone at what was then the Marion County Department of Welfare.
“Why on earth would we talk to a doctor?” Hibbard was asked.•
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