The COVID-19 pandemic upended the state’s Division for Children Youth and Families, according to a report from the division’s overseer, with remote-learning making it harder to detect abuse and institutions struggling to quarantine children.

At the pandemic’s outset, Moira O’Neill, the state’s child advocate, worried that abuse and neglect would go unreported with children away from schools — and the teachers and counselors who might be able to spot those in need. DCYF has received fewer reports of abuse and neglect this year, the division’s data show, and fewer of those calls are coming from teachers.