A report just out on the number of children in foster care and group homes shows numbers for the former are stable, for the latter, declining slightly.
Still, there are sobering figures in the report, data that paints a troubling picture of child abuse in the Keystone State.
The Penn State sex abuse scandal touches on the problem of one alleged abuser and as many as 40 alleged victims; it continues to get national press coverage almost daily.
And yet, according to the report from the Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, 27,681 children were in foster care in 2010, and another 4,700 received in-home services designed to keep them out of foster care. While not all of those children receive those services because of abuse, some were.
According to the report, there were 3,668 substantiated reports of child abuse in the system, and about 330 of those children were victims more than once.
It is axiomatic that our culture pays attention to cases involving the rich and famous, while all but ignoring the big picture. Still, at least the PSU case has caused more light to be shed on the overall problem, and if there is only one silver lining to this ominous cloud, it is that.
Pennsylvania is making strides caring for children who have been abused, neglected, even abandoned.
But, as the report points out in sad numbers, there is much work yet to be done.