Children in Home Education in the US Face Risks of Abuse and Neglect
The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel (CSPRP) in the United States, which investigates serious child protection cases, announced in its report that children receiving home education are at risk of death or abuse due to poor care. After the rate of children transitioning from classroom to home education doubled last year, with 140,000 students being home educated and another 117,000 considered “completely missing” from education, CSPRP began its research and called for an emergency action plan for these children.
Based on 41 children who did not attend school between August 2020 and October 2021, CSPRP’s report highlighted that the reviewed children were subjected to sexual and physical abuse and neglect, with six children dying and thirty-five severely harmed. The report also noted that of the deceased children, three had committed suicide, one died from an undiagnosed eating disorder, and another from undiagnosed leukemia. Children who were not sent to school due to religious beliefs were emphasized as being isolated from the outside world and other people.
According to the report, children in home education are less visible to child protection agencies. Approximately half of the children, who should have been under the protection of child social services, had no interaction with officials. The panel pointed out that practitioners lack the legal authority and guidance necessary to regularly access home-educated children, and intentional interruption by parents of digital visits and other communications significantly reduced the visibility of these children.
The evidence presented by the panel reinforces “the need for a statutory register so that relevant legal organizations know which children are being home educated.” According to experts on the panel, while this practice will not protect children by itself, it will help protection agencies have better local knowledge about these children.