Re: Research and Reporting

["Sandra Beeman" <sbeeman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Debra Nelson-Gardell and Carol Ann Plummer recently posted questions 
related to reporting of child maltreatment.

There is quite an extensive literature on legal and ethical issues in 
conducting research on child maltreatment and other forms of family 
violence.  Much of this literature discusses mandated reporting laws. 
I urge you to carefully examine your state's reporting law - states 
vary widely in terms of who is a mandated reporter (some even 
distinguish between clinical and research roles within certain 
disciplines), and the period of time covered (e.g. some states 
require mandated reporters to report any suspicion of child 
maltreatment that happened any time in the past; others have limits 
of 2 to 3 years.)  Also keep in mind that the reporting laws require 
you to report if you THINK there may be maltreatment going on (i.e. 
"suspicions") - it is not the job of the reporter to determine if 
there is maltreatment before they report.  This is a very complicated 
issue that goes beyond legal requirements - i.e. even if a researcher 
doesn't have a legal obligation to report, do they have an ethical 
obligation to report?  I recently did a literature review for a paper 
I wrote on methodological and ethical issues in research on the 
overlap of child maltreatment and woman battering.  I don't have my 
bibliography in front of me at the moment, but I will be happy to 
post some of the most helpful articles sometime in the next few days.

Sandy Beeman
University of Minnesota
*****************************************************
Sandra Beeman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
University of Minnesota School of Social Work
105 Peters Hall, 1404 Gortner Ave.
St. Paul, MN  55108
(612)624-3669
FAX:  (612) 624-3744
sbeeman@che2.che.umn.edu