RE: Mandated Reporting Laws

["John Rosen" <jrosen@xxxxxxx>]

Has anyone ever developed a "mandated reporting inventory" assessing when MRs would/would not report a specific situation?  Administering such a beast to various MRs would be interesting.  I suspect we'd find very noisy data:  lots of disagreement.  We're not going to udnerstand much about how MR laws are applied until we have that kind of data.

Deciding what to do is extremely difficult.  The problem is that the "legal guidelines" aren't specific enough for MRs to be sure of their obligations.

I once sat through an "ethics" training for foster care/adoption social workers, focusing on whether to report specific (and real) cases.  We got into some fierce arguments, with no way to settle them.  People at that training simply did not know how to interpret the law, or their responsibilities.

Most troublesome case:  A 15-year old girl told an undergraduate social work student (on internship) about past repeated sexual abuse by her brother; the abuse had ended some years before, and the brother was now out of the home.  Many workers felt that, if the incident were investigated, it would (a) not increase the girl's safety, and (b) would stir up  unpleasant thoughts.  Other people thought that the case should be called in because it did appear that serious abuse had occurred, and that the burden of figuring out what was in the child's best interests was up to Child and Protective Services (CPS).  (My own view:  Mandatory means mandatory.)

Now these were (almost) all social workers, employed by a single agency.  Suppose that one looked as well at the responses (on the mand. reprt. inv.) of teachers, nurses, etc.  I think the variation would increase even more.

My impression is that social workers (at least in this state) receive very little instruction in the implications of the MR law.  I received NONE, I mean NONE, when I first became a mandatory reporter (but note that, as a researcher/evaluator, I do not see children professionally).  I'm afraid that, without detailed instruction, including examination and discussion of numerous specific cases, we should not expect as a practical matter that MRs will agree on their judgements about any but the most flagrant cases.

The Kansas newspaper story I sent around before (http://www.cjonline.com/stories/083099/kan_abusereporting.shtml) goes to show that at least some courts are aware of the MR law's problems.

Many MRs face a base-rate problem:  Most school children are not being abused/neglected, nor are most patients in pediatricians' offices.  So, for most "front-line" MRs, it's relatively rare that calling CPS is the right choice; most bumps and bruises are just bumps and bruises.  The natural bias here is against calling in, at least when the abuse/neglect is marginal.  And, when people do call in, they likely think about it for awhile, talk with peers/experts about what to do, and so that first call is delayed.

I do not believe the situation will become better without three changes:  first, systematic instruction (is this done anywhere?); second, systematic evaluation (again, has this been done?); and third, some kind of feedback from the instruction/evaluation steps into the legislative arena.

	John Rosen

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Hi everyone -

I am seeking some help. We are having a HUGE problem with mandated reporters (MR) not following the legal guidelines, i.e., not calling in reports at all or in a timely fashion; simply sending in the reporting form; or calling after several months of witnessing behavioral issues (i.e., a teacher who watched a child sexually act out all year). I am trying to determine how other states/counties/jurisdictions deal with this problem. We inform MRs who have not followed these guidelines verbally, but, quite frankly, they could care less. 

Please help!!

thanks

Beverly