WBRZ - Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE- Department of Children and Family Services officials are calling a new hotline to report abuse a success, after taking more than 100,000 calls since it started a year ago.

Anonymous tipsters can call in 24 hours a day seven days a week. On the other end of the phone are trained social services agents with backgrounds in child and family services. Those workers decide if the information should be passed along to other departments.

DCFS officials say a great deal happens between when someone calls in a tip, and when they decide that a child is being abused or neglected. If officials feel the environment they are living in is dangerous, they may end up in foster care.

Some are false alarms, but DCFS Communications Director Trey Williams tells News 2 the department motto is "better safe than sorry."

“It really is important that the community gets involved in protecting the children," Williams said. "Children really don't have a voice and we are the voice of those children.”

DCFS officials say more than 50,000 tips that were called in led to child abuse investigations.