Milwaukee County residents who need to report suspected child abuse or neglect rely on 220-SAFE, the main reporting line run through the state Department of Children and Families. Teachers, doctors and other mandatory reporters also use the number, and state standards call for a way to take those reports around the clock, every day.
One caller said they first dialed the line on Oct. 15 at about 5:30 p.m. and stayed on hold for roughly five minutes before leaving a number for a callback. No callback came, and an attempt to send a fax did not go through either.
The same caller tried again around midnight, calling five or six times from different phones. Each time a greeting played and asked them to press 1 for English, and then the call went nowhere. A callback finally arrived at about noon on Oct. 16, and a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter who tested the line that morning at about 10:30 a.m. ran into the same dead end at the greeting.
Department spokesperson Jamie Tikkanen said the department learned on Oct. 16 that the outage was preventing calls from getting through on 220-SAFE. She said the problem started on Oct. 15 while a router was being replaced, and that the fax line was affected as well. The router was repaired early on Oct. 16, and Tikkanen said both the phone and fax lines are working again, with calls from the day of the outage now being reviewed.
While the phone line was down, the department pointed people to other options. Reports can be emailed to DCFMilwaukeeChildWelfare@wisconsin.gov, and anyone facing an urgent, life-threatening situation should call 911.
