Charlie Johns, director of Butler County Children and Youth Services, spoke of how his office's workload has increased since the state revised its child protective services law in 2015.

The director of Butler County Children and Youth Services reacted Thursday to the state's annual report on child abuse, saying it shows how the office's workload has increased since the state revised its child protective services law in 2015.

The number of substantiated cases of child abuse and total reports of child abuse in Butler County both went up last year, according to an annual state report on the incidents.

Charlie Johns, the director of the county's CYS office, said the upticks continue a trend of increased workloads for county-level child protective services, and highlight a statewide struggle to deal with drug and alcohol abuse, which are present in most child abuse cases.

During 2016, Butler County had 502 reports of child abuse and 38 substantiated cases, according to the state Department of Health's Child Protective Services Report, which was released Wednesday afternoon.

Those totals were both increases from 2015, when the county had 422 total reports and 30 substantiated cases of child abuse.

Johns also responded to public criticism of the county's CYS office in the wake of the report. Some pointed to the county's substantiation rate of 1 per 1,000 children as evidence that the office was failing to adequately investigate reports of suspected abuse. Butler's reporting rate is 12.8 per 1,000 children.

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