The Florida Abuse Hotline is the centralized operation responsible for receiving, analyzing, and assigning reports of alleged of abuse, neglect, exploitation, and special conditions for all children and vulnerable adults in Florida. The hotline accepts reports 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The hotline also conducts criminal background checks on participants of reports, potential caregivers for children in out-of-home care, and for reunification purposes.

The hotline receives calls, faxes, and web-based reports from citizens and professionals with concerns of abuse, neglect, or exploitation of children or vulnerable adults. Individuals can contact the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-96-ABUSE or 1-800-962-2873; fax a report to 1-800-914-0004; or report online. A hotline counselor assesses the information provided by the caller and determines if the information provided meets statutory criteria for the department to conduct an investigation by a child protective investigator or adult protective investigator in the appropriate county office.

The Florida Abuse Hotline accepts, screens, and refers reports of alleged abuse, neglect, or exploitation for two vulnerable groups.

• Adults. Adults with disabilities and elders receive services through the Adult Protective Services Program. Clients include adults with physical and mental incapacities who are unable to protect themselves from abuse, neglect, or exploitation.
• Children. Children who are abused and neglected receive services through the department's Office of Child Welfare. Clients include children who are alleged to have been abused, neglected, or abandoned, or who are in a situation of threatened harm due to acts or omissions of the parent, adult household member, or other household member responsible for the child's welfare.

In Fiscal Year 2020-21, the hotline received 482,815 

Contact Source	Number of Contacts
Calls	391,652
Online	91,163
Total	482,815
Alleged Victim Type	Number of Contacts
Child	326,047
Adult	118,894
Total	444,941

Source: Department of Children and Families.

The hotline also received 35,090 requests for referral information on services from the public and completed 555,422 criminal background checks on individuals who were subject of reports and/or relative/non-relative placements.

The Florida Abuse Hotline's abandoned call rate for Fiscal Year 2020-21 was 13.9%, which did not meet the legislative standard of 3%.

The Florida Abuse Hotline is funded as part of the Family Safety Program budget entity.

The following new initiatives are under development for incorporation into the operational environment of the Hotline. 

• Incorporating new legislative requirements associated with Ch. 2021-170, Laws of Florida. 
• Incorporating a revised Hotline supervisor quality review process where more focus will be on the counselor assessments, decision making, and documentation of screened-in reports.
• Increasing the number of quality pre-crisis referrals provided to the Hotline reporters by incorporating the usage of the MyFloridaMyFamily referral database.
• Partnering with the Office of Economic Self-Sufficiency to develop a process where the Hotline would complete an assessment and refer callers to Care Coordination.
• Piloting the Child Maltreatment Prevention Academy. 

Annual Report on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Florida, 2022, Report 22-05, July 2022

Annual Report on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Florida, 2021, Report 21-06, July 2021

Annual Report on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Florida, 2020, Report 20-05, July 2020

Other Reports
The Auditor General reports on department operations are located on its website.

Websites of Interest
Reporting Abuse/Neglect/Exploitation to the Florida Abuse Hotline
Child Welfare Information Gateway, Identification of Child Abuse and Neglect 

Performance Information
Performance measures and standards for the department may be found in its Long Range Program Plan. Planning and Performance Measures report the department's performance on external and internal measures for its various programs. The measures allow the user to view performance at both a statewide and geographic region level.

Chapter 39 Part II and s. 415.103, Florida Statutes.

Department of Children and Families, 850-487-1111 or 1-800-96-ABUSE

Website