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- Make Homeschool Safe for All Children
CRHE’s research informs policy recommendations such as our Make Homeschool Safe model legislation. Our research also supports development of educational trainings for professionals who encounter homeschooled children. To date, we have trained over one thousand professionals in understanding abuse and neglect in homeschool settings, with a focus on the policy landscape that enables that abuse and neglect.
Our current research focuses on abuse and neglect in homeschool settings.
Just as parents can abuse and neglect conventionally schooled children, so can parents who homeschool their children. However, conventionally schooled children have regular access to mandated reporters and education professionals by virtue of being in a school setting. Due to lax homeschool policies, homeschooled children do not have similar access to professionals capable of recognizing and acting on abuse and neglect.
This means patterns of abuse, neglect, and reporting can differ in significant ways, with implications for homeschool policy and for child welfare professionals.
We maintain a database on cases of abuse and neglect in homeschooling settings that are available in the public record. The Homeschooling’s Invisible Children Database contains over 400 cases of abuse and neglect that have resulted in over 200 fatalities of homeschooled children. You can view our key findings or download our full 2024 report (PDF). Additional analyses are ongoing; current areas of focus include withdrawal from school, sexual abuse, and how abusers engage with disability. Future areas of research include social isolation and additional research surrounding disability. You can download our data and codebook here.
While educational neglect often comes up as a topic among alumni, it has rarely been studied in either homeschooling research or in research on child maltreatment. Similarly, the voices of homeschool alumni, especially those who report negative experiences, are often marginalized in scholarship.
We are in the process of conducting an array of studies on educational neglect with homeschool alumni; contact us for more information.
Sign up here for monthly research & policy updates, and opportunities to support responsible homeschooling.