January 20, 2013
Mandatory Reporting of Child Maltreatment
From this assignment I became aware that all states in the United States have statutes identifying anyone who must report child maltreatment under certain circumstances. I have been a resident of Pennsylvania for 20 years. This assignment really opened my eyes to a subject I have no put much attention towards until now. To compare Pennsylvania’s laws with other states, I chose states close to the area. I chose to also look at New Jersey, Delaware, New York and Maryland as well. In Pennsylvania, professionals who are required to report maltreatment are just about anyone working in a medical related field, such as physicians, nurses, medical examiners, interns, podiatrists,
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Any person who has valid reasoning that a child is being abused or neglected, are required to report this abuse as well. Just like in PA, in New York the standards for making a report remain the same. However, the person making the report must give their name.
For my fourth state, I looked at Delaware. In Delaware, professionals who are required to make a report are physicians, interns, residents, nurses, medical examiners, anyone in the healing arts, school employees, socials workers, psychologists, hospital and health-care institutions, the Medical School of Delaware, and also law enforcement agencies. Any person who is aware of abuse, or in good faith believe abuse or neglect is going on, are required to report the abuse. Also, although the reports can be made anonymously, the Division of Family Service can request the name as well as the address of anyone making the report.
The fifth and final state I looked at for this assignment was Maryland. In this state, professionals required to report abuse are just health practitioners, educators or human service workers, and police officers. Also any person who has reason to believe that a child is being abused or treated unfairly is asked to report it as well. Anyone can notify the local department or law enforcement agency if they have reason to believe a parent, guardian or caregiver,
In the state of New York the Child Protective System identifies certain professional a vital purpose in reporting child abuse, a code of ethic is used here B.2.a., Probable Harm and Legal requirements under the ACA code of ethics (Counseling, 2015). It is mandated to certain professionals to report
abuse or suspected abuse of vulnerable individuals is mandated to be reported in most states
Child abuse has an impact on the many crimes America faces. Child abuse is not always easy to distinguish at a quick glance and can go on for years without someone knowing. Many criminal justice practitioners are involved in these cases. Between psychologist that help the children recover ,and find out their stories to the police officers who arrests the offenders, Child abuse is a delicate situation and takes the upmost care.
Child abuse is epidemic in many countries as well as the United States. It is estimated that every thirteen seconds a child is abused in some manner: physically, sexually, emotionally or by neglect (Friedman). Each year, there are over 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States involving more than 6 million children. Child abuse can be reduced with proper education of the parents and with greater public awareness.
When a child is suspected of being abused, neglected or placed at imminent risk of serious harm by a member of the staff of a private or public school or an institution that cares for the child, the person in charge of the school or facility must notify the child’s parent or other person responsible for the child’s care that a report has been made. The state’s department of child abuse responsibility is to notify the head of a facility, school or establishment that a report has been made.
What is child abuse? From the word “abuse” we can understand that it is some sort of a maltreatment of a child, causing harm and damage both to his physical and psychological well-being. At the Federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) describes child abuse and neglect as: “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation, or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.” Child abuse is a very substantial and widely spread problem in U.S. affecting children of any age, gender, race, background or income, with more than 1.8 million investigations done every year and on average, killing more than 5 children every day. The main issue of child abuse is that the abuser is usually someone a child loves or depends on (a parent, sibling, coach, neighbor, etc.), who violates child’s trust putting personal interests first, therefore official numbers of how many children suffer maltreatment might be not accurate enough as remarkable amount of these cases go unreported. Each case of child abuse is unique, with a lot of individual factors involved, nevertheless, we can distinguish some of the common causes, such as poverty, lack of education, depression, mental or physical health
According to the National Children’s Alliance, one in four girls and one in six boys under the age of eighteen are at risk of being sexually abused but only according to what is reported. In the State of Texas, a professional has forty-eight hours to report any cause to believe a child been abused as stated in Sec. 261.101. As a foster parent and principal, Angela Sugarek and Carol Jeffery had a major moral responsibility and legal duty to report what her three year old foster son was displaying: behaving strangely and an anal injury.
Westat found that professionals failed to report many of the children they saw who had signs of child abuse and neglect. It found that in 1986, 56 percent of apparently abused or neglected children, or about 500,000 children, were not reported to the authorities. This figure, however, seems more alarming than it is: Basically, the more serious the case, the more likely the report. For example, the surveyed professionals reported over 85 percent of the fatal or serious physical abuse cases they saw, 72 percent of the sexual abuse cases, and 60 percent of the moderate physical abuse cases. They only reported 15 percent of the educational neglect cases they saw, 24 percent of the emotional neglect cases, and 25 percent of the moderate physical neglect cases.
Under and over reporting is of equal concern because both affect the number of child abuse victims who are in need of help. “Failure to report exposes children to serious injury or even death and over reporting diverts resources from understaffed agencies, thus limiting their ability their ability to protect children in real danger” (Loseke, 285). Another issue is when to decide whether signs of abuse are actual signs of child abuse or just everyday injuries child usually inflict on themselves. Furthermore, this can also impact the whether a person will report the incident or not. For example, two people can see the same incident and depending on their knowledge of child abuse they can, either report it or determine it is not abuse. “A study of non-reporting among teachers, blamed their lack of knowledge for detecting symptoms of child abuse and neglect” (Loseke, 292).
The most vulnerable individuals are found within the elderly and children population. Children can be impacted tremendously when experiencing situations that may affect their emotional, physical, and mental stage. Abuse can be seen in different forms such as sexual, emotional, physical abuse, and neglect. If any child is exposed to any of these abuse, it is the law to reach out to the proper authorities in order to protect the child’s life. Each state has its own mandated reporting laws and it is important to be able to recognized the protocol and what the law requires in each state.
Arizona Child Abuse Info Center provides information in addition to training on Arizona legislation requirements on mandated reporting. The site includes a free mandatory reporting training with a pretest and posttest, it also includes training slides on top of video training. The pretest included 14 questions to gauge the level of understanding of the legislation of Arizona for mandated reporting for child abuse. The additional training clarified on the repercussions that can occur if a social worker fails to report suspected child abuse. The result includes a misdemeanor charge, a felony charge, including an administrative reprimand. It is helpful to know that there is immunity to the reporter if the report was made in good faith. That provides protection to the social worker from any civil
Danny R. Veilleux, Annotation, Validity, Construction, and Application of State Statute Requiring Doctor or Other Person to Report Child Abuse, 73 A.L.R.4th 782, §3 (1989). However, while Texas statutes expand universally it does specifically place a higher burden on professionals and clearly states that a professional is defined by different professions: specifically doctors, nurses, and employees of a clinic or health care facility that provides reproductive services. TEX. FAM. CODE ANN.§ 261 (2005).
Approximately 3.6 million referrals regarding child abuse are proclaimed to child protection agencies a year. Previous records indicate that the United States carries one of the worst records regarding insufficient solicitude. Child abuse manifests in various forms including: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological abuse. Fair enough to say that on a pie chart about 28.3% of victims are physically harmed, 20.7% sexually assaulted and about 10.6% emotionally
Every year an approximate 139,000 cases of child abuse and neglect are reported in Ohio, and 72,000 are thoroughly investigated (Ohio's Children 2012). Although some might think this number is high, it is believed that the number of actual child abuse cases would
If someone fails to report child abuse or neglect also face penalties and consequences."• 18 of 50 states require abuse reporting training.