A child abuse advocacy group is reporting an increase in child abuse cases in DeWitt County.

Samantha Stevenson is the Director for Development with the Child Protection Network and says in their three-county area, DeWitt and McLean Counties are seeing increases in child abuse cases.

From this time last year, active child abuse cases in central Illinois are down however, there are over 4,400 pending cases, which Stevenson pointed out on the WHOW Morning Show Thursday would take the case total past 10,000.

According to Stevenson, she is hearing from judges in the area there is a shortage of workers to get in front of these children for assessments which are clogging up the judicial system's ability to process every child efficiently.

Stevenson notes Livingston County saw a decrease in abuse cases and speculates that could be due to reports that have yet to be followed up on due to the worker shortages. She also believes it could be due to the mobility of families during the summer.