NH Kids Count | Safety

Safety

Every child in New Hampshire deserves to grow up in an environment where they feel safe, protected, and supported. Yet concerning trends in child maltreatment, substance use, and cyberbullying reveal significant challenges facing our state's young people. Though there are signs of progress—such as declining youth vaping rates and reduced reliance on juvenile detention—new threats continue to emerge. Rising cannabis use among teenagers, the mental health impacts of excessive social media consumption, and persistent alcohol use among youth demand our attention and action. This data underscores a fundamental truth: children can only thrive academically, socially, and emotionally when their basic safety needs are met at home, at school, and online.

Child Maltreatment

For New Hampshire children to thrive, they must be safe at home.

In 2023, 12,792 children were subjected to an investigation report of alleged child abuse or neglect.¹ Of these reports, 1,317 were substantiated as victims of child maltreatment in New Hampshire. The most common form of maltreatment was neglect (1,037 cases), followed by emotional abuse (222 cases), physical abuse (117 cases), and sexual abuse (95 cases).²
1,175 children were in foster care in 2023 for a median length of 11.3 months.³ Children in foster care are significantly more likely to struggle academically, have behavioral issues, and are less likely to graduate high school.⁴ In New Hampshire, the Division of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) works to reunify children and their families when it is safe to do so by engaging in mental health and substance misuse treatment, and programming like the Roadmap to Reunification program, which focuses on collaboration and connection between foster and birth parents, and the Father Engagement Action Team, which focuses on engaging fathers in case planning. 343 children were safely reunited with their families during the 2025 fiscal year.⁵
Children thrive in environments where they feel safe, stable, and bonded to their family. Children in the child welfare system have suffered at least one adverse childhood experience. The more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) a child faces, the greater the risk for poor physical and mental health, substance use, and risky behaviors in adulthood. In 2012, researchers found that current and former foster care youth had significantly higher rates of substance use disorders.⁴

Data Spotlight

Juvenile Justice

Over the past decade, New Hampshire has made great strides in finding alternatives to juvenile detention for children and youth involved in the court system. Today, research shows that there are more effective alternatives to youth incarceration, such as prevention, therapy, restorative justice interventions, and wraparound supports. In 2016, 256 children were incarcerated at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, formerly known as the Youth Detention Center (YDC). In 2023, just 15 youth were housed at the Sununu Center.⁷

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Bullying & Social Media

Social media and online bullying are negatively impacting youth in New Hampshire.

More than one in five teens in New Hampshire (21.5 percent) has experienced bullying online. Cyberbullying is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. It takes place over digital devices like cell phones, computers, and tablets. Cyberbullying can occur through text messages, social media, forums, or gaming, where people can view, participate in, or share content.
Today, the typical social media user spends two hours and 23 minutes per day scrolling on social media platforms. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 95 percent of youth aged 13 to 17 have access to a smartphone, and that 1 in 5 teens report being on YouTube or TikTok “almost constantly.”⁸
In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory about the “growing concerns about the effects of social media on youth mental health.” The report noted that youth in the U.S. ages 12 to 15 who spent more than three hours per day on social media faced double the risk of depression and anxiety. Nearly 60 percent of adolescent girls reported feeling uncomfortable due to an interaction with a stranger on social media. 47 percent of girls also reported that social media made them feel worse about their bodies.⁹

Solving Problems Through Policy Change

Prevention

For over 20 years, New Futures has advocated for New Hampshire’s Alcohol Abuse Prevention and Treatment Fund, often known as the Alcohol Fund, which is the state’s only dedicated source of funding for substance use prevention, treatment, and recovery. By law, the Alcohol Fund must direct five percent of profits from the state’s liquor stores to the Alcohol Fund, but lawmakers have historically overridden the law in favor of underfunding or redirecting dollars away from prevention, treatment, and recovery.

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Substance Use

New Hampshire teens report vaping less, but increasing use of other substances.

In 2019, nearly one-third of New Hampshire teens were currently using electronic vaping products. Four years later, only 16.7 percent of teens reported current vaping use. Cigarette usage has also remained low, with under four percent of teens reporting they currently smoke cigarettes. These downward trends indicate that prevention and cessation efforts in New Hampshire are working; however, recent cuts to state and federal cessation programming put this progress in jeopardy.¹⁰
23.1 percent of New Hampshire teens reported currently drinking alcohol in 2023. Females were more likely to report currently drinking compared to males (25.8 percent versus 20.4 percent).¹¹ 15.6 percent of teens reported they had ridden in a car with a driver who had been drinking alcohol one or more times in the 30 days before the survey.¹² Adolescents whose parents drank five or more days a month were four times more likely to drink alcohol. Young people who drink are more likely to engage in behaviors that can lead to injuries like burns, falls, drowning, or alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes or other health conditions, and are more likely to experience social, academic, and legal issues.¹³
From 2021 to 2023, New Hampshire saw a four percent increase in the number of teens currently using cannabis products (15.8 percent in 2021 to 19.8 percent in 2023). About 1 in 10 cannabis users will develop a substance use disorder. For people who begin using before the age of 18, that number rises to 1 in 6. Cannabis use has also been linked to mental health problems like depression, social anxiety, and serious, long-lasting mental disorders. People who use cannabis at an earlier age are more likely to develop schizophrenia.¹⁴

Data Spotlight

Cannabis Use on Mental Health

In the 2023 YRBS, students who reported it was very easy to get marijuana were 2.3 times more likely to report feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks and three times more likely to have made a plan for suicide in the past 12 months. Data shows that early and current use of marijuana is linked to poor mental health in youth.

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Policy Considerations

To improve the safety of children, New Hampshire should adopt policies that:

•Increase access to school-safety and anti-bullying programming statewide
•Protect important data collection tools like the Youth Risk Behavior Survey
•Increase access to prevention programming and early identification strategies, like implementing Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) in schools to identify students who need substance misuse supports.
•Ensure YDC is trauma-informed and treatment-centered
•When considering cannabis legalization legislation, ensure policy efforts are in place to address the link between cannabis and poor mental health outcomes for young adults, such as potency limits, warning labels, advertising prohibitions, and invest in expanding statewide treatment options for Cannabis Use Disorder.
•Invest in evidence-informed substance misuse prevention programs to promote adolescent well-being and reduce treatment costs.
•Ensure funding for nicotine and tobacco cessation programs such as “quitlines,” targeted toward youth.

References

Children who are subject to an investigated report | KIDS COUNT Data Center. (2025, July). Retrieved August 18, 2025, from https://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/6220-children-who-are-subject-to-an-investigated-report?loc=31&loct=2#detailed/2/31/false/2545,1095,2048,574,1729,37,871,870,573,869/any/12940,12955
Children who are confirmed by child protective services as victims of maltreatment by maltreatment type | KIDS COUNT Data Center. (2025, January). Retrieved August 13, 2025, from https://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/9906-children-who-are-confirmed-by-child-protective-services-as-victims-of-maltreatment-by-maltreatment-type?loc=31&loct=2#detailed/2/31/false/2545,1095,2048,574,1729,37,871,870,573/3885,3886,3887,3888,3889,3890/19240,19241
Child Welfare Outcomes Report. (2023). U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration For Children & Families, Children’s Bureau. Retrieved August 18, 2025, from https://cwoutcomes.acf.hhs.gov/cwodatasite/byState/
Liming, K. W., Brook, J., & Akin, B. (2021). Cumulative adverse childhood experiences among children in foster care and the association with reunification: A survival analysis. ScienceDirect, 113. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213420305548
NH DHHS, DCYF celebrate families during Reunification Month. (2025, June 25). Department of Health & Human Services. https://www.dhhs.nh.gov/news-and-media/nh-dhhs-dcyf-celebrate-families-during-reunification-month
Mendel, R. (2023, June 28). Effective alternatives to youth incarceration. The Sentencing Project. https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/effective-alternatives-to-youth-incarceration/
Youth in detention by county of crime | KIDS COUNT Data Center. (2025, February). Retrieved August 13, 2025, from https://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/8786-youth-in-detention-by-county-of-crime?loc=31&loct=2#detailed/2/any/false/2545,574,1729,37,871,870,573,869,36,868/any/17624
Anderson, M., Faverio, M., & Gottfried, J. (2023, December 11). Teens, Social Media and Technology 2023. Pew Research Center. Retrieved August 18, 2025, from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/12/11/teens-social-media-and-technology-2023/
The Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2025, April 14). Effects of social media on mental health. https://www.aecf.org/blog/effects-of-social-media-on-mental-health
American Lung Association. (n.d.). New report details devastating impact of federal cuts on lifesaving tobacco prevention and quit programs. https://www.lung.org/media/press-releases/new-report-details-devastating-impact-of-federal-c
Youth Risk Behavior Survey | CDC. (n.d.-b). https://yrbs-explorer.services.cdc.gov/#/graphs?questionCode=H42&topicCode=C03&location=NH&year=2023
Youth Risk Behavior Survey | CDC. (n.d.). https://yrbs-explorer.services.cdc.gov/#/graphs?questionCode=H9&topicCode=C01&location=NH&year=2023
About underage drinking. (2025, January 14). Alcohol Use. Retrieved August 18, 2025, from https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/underage-drinking/index.html
Cannabis and teens. (2024, February 15). Cannabis and Public Health. Retrieved August 18, 2025, from https://www.cdc.gov/cannabis/risk-factors/cannabis-and-teens.html

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