Why Are Professionals Failing to Initiate Mandated Reports of Child Maltreatment, and Are There Any Empirically Based Training Programs to Assist Professionals in the Reporting Process?

• NCJ Number: 206697
• Journal: Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 9 Issue: 5 Dated: August 2004 Pages: 563-578
• Author(s): Krisann M. Alvarez; Maureen C. Kenny; Brad Donohue; Kimberly M. Carpin
• Date Published: August 2004
• Length: 16 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper reviews studies that have sought to identify the reasons why professionals legally mandated to report child maltreatment fail to do so, as well as training programs that have been proposed to assist these professionals in reporting child abuse and neglect.

Abstract

Although all 50 States require professionals who work with children to report suspected child maltreatment, they often fail to comply with this mandate. Studies have found that up to 68 percent of abused or neglected children who have been served by professionals mandated to report child maltreatment have not been referred to child protection services. Studies have found that among the reasons for this failure of professionals to report child maltreatment are insufficient knowledge of the signs and symptoms of child abuse, lack of training in reporting procedures, the belief that reporting suspicions of child abuse will lead to further harm to the family and child, a negative view of the effectiveness of child protective services in addressing child maltreatment, and the fear of legal or physical retaliation from a suspected perpetrator of child maltreatment. In order to address these barriers to professionals' reporting of suspected child maltreatment, training programs must be established and promoted for those professionals mandated to report child maltreatment. Such training should include the dissemination of basic information about reporting child maltreatment, appropriate guidelines for initiating a report, and methods of enhancing the relationship between mandated professionals and child protective services. At a minimum, training programs should help professionals identify signs of abuse and neglect and inform them about the legal parameters for reporting child maltreatment. This paper profiles various existing training models and details the content areas that should be included in training programs. The paper notes that overall, training programs specific to child maltreatment reporting practices are relatively few and limited, and those that do exist lack empirical support for their effectiveness in increasing reports of suspected child abuse by professionals. Such training programs not only must be developed, they must also be formally evaluated through controlled outcome studies. 78 references