There are approximately three million reports of child abuse every year. Of these 3 million, 1 million are "founded" (substantiated). It is estimated that children with disabilities are almost four times more likely to be victims of abuse and neglect than children without disabilities. A 1993 study by the Office of Child Abuse and Neglect found that 36 percent of the substantiated cases of child maltreatment, or about 300,000 children, caused disabilities in those children. Near-fatal child maltreatment leaves 18,000 children permanently disabled each year. Another study found that over 90 percent of foster care children had an abnormality in at least one body system.

In addition to the unconscionable human costs, the financial costs of the child maltreatment-disabilities dynamic are staggering. According to a study by Health and Human Services, the future lost productivity of severely abused children is $658 million to $1.3 billion, if their impairments limit their potential earnings by only five to ten percent.

Identification and treatment of the medical, developmental and mental health problems of children have been shown to decrease the amount of time a child spends in out of home placement and increase chances for a stable living situation. Unfortunately, because of inadequate funding, less than half of the children who are abused or neglected receive any services at all; and current public policies focus on treating children after they have been abused, instead of preventing the abuse from ever happening in the first place.

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) is the only federal program that provides primary prevention for these families. Congress plans to reauthorize the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) this year. The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Child Abuse Task Force worked with the National Child Abuse Coalition on a proposal that would put more emphasis on primary prevention of abuse and neglect, i.e. before a child enters Child Protective Services. In Title I of the Act, the coalition proposes the development of linkages between public Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies and community-based services that provide comprehensive health and developmental screenings so that any child for whom there is an open case with CPS would receive such services. In Title II, the emphasis is placed on the provision of quality respite care as one of five critically important core child abuse and neglect prevention program; accountability of programs to collect data regarding children with disabilities; better training of service providers in child maltreatment and disabilities; and more support for and involvement of parents of children with disabilities as well as parents with disabilities.