If the focus of this year's legislative session is education, a coalition of child abuse specialists and pediatricians is hoping the 2001 gathering at the state Capitol will produce a similar focus on child welfare.

At a news conference Friday the coalition unveiled a wide-ranging package of 32 proposals that members believe will reduce child abuse and help the state's troubled child protective services system deal with abuse once it has occurred. The proposals focus on beefing up prevention programs, adding specialists to deal with the toughest cases, increasing training for welfare workers and strengthening child abuse laws.

They will be sent to Gov. Roy Barnes, state legislators and the state Child Protective Services Task Force, which is drafting recommendations for changes to the state Division of Family and Children Services.

"This is an opportunity that has arisen from tragic circumstances that gives us a chance to focus some light and some intense heat on this issue," said Peter Lyons, director of the child welfare training program at Georgia State University's School of Social Work.

Lyons, who helped draft the proposals, said their public release at this time is designed to stimulate interest in them among members of the task force. The task force was appointed in December as an independent body by Department of Human Resources Commissioner Audrey Horne after a series of stories in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution detailed shortcomings in the state's child protective services system. It has until April 20 to forward its recommendations to the governor. "It's definitely in the mix," Ann Cramer, chair of the task force, said of the coalition's proposals. "We're looking at preventing child abuse and these are some positive steps to do that."

Among the agencies supporting the proposals are the Center for Child Abuse at the Morehouse School of Medicine, the Georgia Council on Child Abuse and the Georgia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Randell Alexander, director of the medical school's child abuse center, said dozens of experts in child abuse, judges, law enforcement officials, doctors, nurses and social services agencies were consulted during the drafting of the proposals.

"We need a specialization of professionals in this field, just as we have specialists in every other branch of medicine," Alexander said.

Increasing home visitation services, which has proven effective in other states, would significantly reduce child abuse, Alexander said.

According to the coalition, Georgia spends only $2.3 million annually for these services, while Indiana spend $35 million and Florida $24 million. The coalition recommends that Georgia increase its home visitation spending to $25 million.

"We see these as being proactive recommendations. They are concrete and specific," said Sandra Wood, executive director of the Georgia Council on Child Abuse.

CURBING THE HURT
Some recommendations made by a coalition of pediatricians and child welfare specialists to help combat child abuse:

• Establish a statewide Child Abuse Registry to allow DFACS to track families with a history of child abuse when they move from one county to another. The state currently has no such system.
  
• Toughen the laws on child abuse by passing the proposed felony child endangerment law that more clearly delineates what constitutes felony child abuse, and include felony homicide if a child dies as a result of abuse.
  
• Make the presence of illegal substances in a child a category of child abuse.
  
• Create the position of Child Abuse Treatment Specialist within each county DFACS office. This person would be required to have extensive education and experience in child abuse and would work on all serious and prolonged cases of abuse, since DFACS caseworkers often do not have the special skills necessary to do such work.
  
• Increase state funding for home visitation services from $2.3 million to $25 million annually.
  
• Develop a violence prevention program in Georgia schools to teach children alternate means of dealing with interpersonal conflict, reducing the potential they will abuse their own children later in life.
  
• Develop a statewide network of medical centers specializing in child abuse.
  
• Expand the network of 24 existing Child Advocacy Centers to include one in each judicial circuit and link them to the child abuse medical centers. These centers have been successful in decreasing the need for multiple interviews of suspected victims of sexual abuse.
  
• Explore the possibility of law enforcement and DFACS conducting joint investigations in child abuse cases.
  
• Establish a university consortium to teach advanced issues in child abuse for DFACS specialists.