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The exterior of the Arkansas Children's House is seen. The House is dedicated to research and treatment of child abuse in Arkansas.

The national statistics are mind numbing: 1 million children are physically abused each year and three children die every day from physical abuse.

In Arkansas the numbers are not dropping.

In statistics released by the Arkansas Children's Hospital, more than 5,000 children have been evaluated and treated since a child abuse facility opened in 1992. In 2005, more than 600 were seen, and that was an increase of 25 percent from 2004.

Those are the kinds of stats Dr. Jerry Jones keeps in mind. Jones, who is a pediatrician with Children's and a professor at UAMS, helped establish the Team for Children at Risk in 1986 and he was instrumental in the opening of the Arkansas Children's House in 1992.

The Little Rock native has spent almost his entire professional career working in Arkansas but he didn't set out to treat the victims of child abuse.

"It wasn't through design," Jones said, "It was an area that I had a strong interest in … at that time child abuse as a pediatric specialty was only barely beginning to exist. In fact it has only been in the last few years that it has become as a special field, and it has only been in the last four years that you could have a fellowship in pediatric child abuse."

Jones is one of three physicians who are at the Children's House.

The work can be especially demanding.

"The child abuse aspect requires an enormous amount of time," Jones said. "We have to get everything right if the case is going to go to court."

He added that he spends about four hours a week preparing for court cases and "that isn't just me. Our therapists spend a lot of time in court."

So how busy is he?

"In January through April I received 31 subpoenas," Jones said. "Fortunately not all of those cases ended up going to court. But I still have to review them and prepare."

And in a year the number rises to more than 100.

Jones said that child abuse doesn't have a rhyme or reason.

"The numbers seem to go up and down," Jones said. "A lot of that is due to reporting. If, for example, there is a television program about child abuse or a presentation at a school, child abuse reports will peak again. Children will come up to the teacher and say, 'It happened to me.'

"Sadly the numbers are probably pretty stable and they are too high."

The research that goes into child abuse is difficult. "Each state is independent," Jones said. "You cannot compare one state to another, the reporting requirements are so different. There are certain types of reports that some states take and some states don't."

The end result is that, according to Jones, the numbers can't be compared from state to state.

He then added, "Arkansas is different from any other state in the country. Arkansas is the only state that all serious, more severe child abuse is investigated by law enforcement."

Arkansas State Police has a Crimes Against Children Division and they will investigate allegations of child abuse. They also maintain a child abuse hotline that receives more than 45,000 calls a year. The state itself is split into eight areas and each has a lead investigator, but the investigators are not sworn law enforcement officers.

If a case looks like it has merit, the investigation is then handed off to the Criminal Investigation Division, where the investigators are also state policemen. Then a criminal investigation will begin.

"It is a very complicated, very confusing system," Jones said.

That isn't the only headache — funding is another.

"So many feel that child abuse is an unpleasant subject and that it would be bad advertising," Jones said. "What they don't realize is that we are in this business of helping children. If I didn't believe that, this would be a very dismal job. But companies don't view it that way and that mindset is very hard to turn around."

That isn't true for all companies.

"One that has helped our program for over 15 years, every year, has been the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette," he said. "They have provided funding every year. It used to be from their big bass tournament, now it is those phone calls that you get at dinnertime. They tell people that if they subscribe that a portion will go to the child abuse program at Children's Hospital. If it was not for them, the mental health component of our program, I don't know if it would be here."

It isn't that companies haven't given money in the past. Jones noted that Harvest Foods, when it was still locally owned, had been a major supporter and others were beginning to step up.

"Mary Healey's Jewelry has become a good supporter," Jones said. "We have been real impressed with her, her interest and her support of the program."

For Healey, the involvement is personal.

"I have personally committed to raising $250,000 for a chair," Healey said of the goal to endow a chair. It is $1 million and the [hospital's] auxiliary said they would raise the other $750,000. It is pitiful, just pitiful, it really is, that others aren't doing more. This is something that we should all be doing."

For Jones that outside money is very important.

"You can't depend on state and federal money to do it all. We are fortunate here that we have a children's hospital and a college of medicine that has been very, very supportive. Not every program in the country can say that."

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