Re: CPS and DV intersections

["Adolph.Simmons" <Adolph.Simmons@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Have you contacted anyone working with the North Carolina Division of
Social Services so that they could clarify the policy for you?

"Priya A. Kapoor" wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am a first-year MSW student at the University of North Carolina at
> Chapel Hill.  I am working on a paper which will examine a proposed
> policy change in North Carolina, designed to change the way that CPS
> investigators deal with families in which there is also domestic
> violence.  A current proposal by our governer would make it a form of
> child maltreatment to batter a parent in front of their child.  There
> is also the possibility that this will be made a crime, apart from the
> crime of battering itself.  In other words, someone who batters his
> wife in front of their child could be charged with batter, and also
> with battery in front of a child, and could also be substantiated for
> child maltreatment.  (I use the example of a man beating his wife
> because this is the most common pattern; I do not mean to imply that
> women do not batter, men do not get battered, or that battering does
> not occur in same-sex partnerships.)
>
> Some of the possible benefits of this policy change would be that
> batterers would be penalized more severely than they are now, and
> children would be protected from seeing their parent get battered.
> Some possible disadvantages are that, as with all other forms of child
> maltreatment, this would be subject to mandatory reporting -- which
> means that if a woman told her doctor she was being battered, the
> doctor would be required to call in a CPS report.  This would mean that
> the woman would risk having her children removed and having her
> batterer find out that she had revealed the battering.
>
> Some other states also have policies which are similar or related to
> this one.  Many of these policies are based on the "Green Book" report,
> which is also partly the basis of our governer's proposal.  I am
> interested in hearing from anyone who is in one of these states, or has
> knowledge of the Green Book, or just has anything to say about this at
> all.  I welcome references or research pointers, or just people's
> opinions and ideas.  If you send me the latter, please let me know your
> title, or job, or pro bono work, or whatever is relevant; and also if I
> can quote you by name in the paper.
>
> Thank you!
>
> "I was a long time coming, I'll be a long time gone
> You got your whole life to do something and that's not very long.
> Why don't you give me a call when you're willing to fight
> For what you think is real, for what you think is right."
>                         -- ani difranco