Welcome to another week.
The Law Society has come out against mandatory reporting of child abuse, a duty which if made into law, would require child welfare professionals to report suspected child abuse to police and other officials.
Arguing that a duty to report suspected abuse would be counter-productive, the Law Society has suggested that mandatory reporting would be overly intrusive for families involved, lead to a sharp increase in reports which would cripple an already backlogged family justice system and lead to further delays, as child welfare professionals would become “overly preoccupied” with the need to report abuse.
But emerging research paints a different picture. Although some evidence in the US suggests that criminal sanctions for failure to report suspected abuse can lead to professionals turning a blind eye to abuse over fears that this could cause the child in question more harm, much of the research to date highlights positive outcomes. Other US research implies that a larger number of abused children go on to be identified without causing additional strain to child protection platforms, and data from Western Australia shows that twice as many sexually abused children went on to be identified after the introduction of the law, there.
Our question this week then, is this: Do you think mandatory reporting of child abuse is a good or a bad thing?
Researching Reform 
It is a good thing providing the injury is sexual or physical (with severe injury or a repeated pattern of bruising)
Every toddler falls over frequently Learning to walk and then to run but too often at present one bruise results in the taking into care of a child for an accidental bruise;
Such injuries should be significant and frequent before they are reported and before those who receive such reports take them seriously.
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Thank you for your comment, FA. What if the abuse is non physical in origin but causing deep psychological trauma that is manifesting in serious mental health problems, for example?
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I am a supporter of the duty to report. I think it is much like the theory that saving one life is worth the effort and burdens placed on a system by the fear and risk of over-reporting. I think that the government can assist in very helpful ways in minimizing over reporting by educating the public through not only educational sessions, but now through webinars, videos on websites, and other virtual tools that will educate people in advance of the efective date of any such law.
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Thank you, Tom. These are excellent ideas.
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The NSPCC Charter Article 4.3.2 defines child protection as “dissemination of knowledge … as to the protection and care of children’ (https://www.nspcc.org.uk/globalassets/documents/about-us/nspcc-royal-charter-byelaws-council-regulations.pdf).
it hasn’t happen since 1895, I doubt if it will ever happen.
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i think mandatory reporting of child abuse sounds good in once sense but we have to guard against dishonest social workers and CPS management abusing it to wrongly remove children for the Adoption and Fostering markets. What we dont want is an even bigger Farmers Market for children than we already have. Yes many sceptics and Social workers will say Cash for kids is simply nonsense but when we see what has been exposed by High Court Judges such as Justice Pauffley and Judge Horton it doesnt take an Einstein Genius to work out why that corruption is going on. What the country needs to know is why it hasnt been investigated, why it hasnt been on the National News and why nobody has been prosecuted. We are talking about secret deals between Family court judges, social workers and other Local authority staff to make shure parents will not get a fare hearing. This is a Scandal of Epic proportions still yet to go Viral. its on the same scale as operation Yewtree if not much much worse. We see billionaires like Peter Green and Mike Ashley brought in front of MPs to Answer questions. when are we going to see Local authority managements and Family court Judges brought in for Questioning because its Long overdue!
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Thank you, Keith, that sounds very sensible. How do we guard against malicious and unethical reporting?
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We need a independent watchdog body making shure Social workers dont break rules or abuse their position of power, and they regularly liaison with parents and children to make shure they are being treated fairly with no dirty tricks and their concerns are being listened to. S/workers act like the police but nobody seems to be policing them.Thats the problem.
As we all know if there is no policing of a system you can bet organized crime will run rife within that system. So now we know why the LA can remove children based on hearsay evidence and use that to severely punish the parents by dragging them through the family courts Temple of Doom who can decide on the word of a Social workers case file that you will not see your children again till they are 18 or maybe even never. and all this is being perpetrated against many parents who have never been charged OR convicted of any crime against their children. is it only me who thinks this is a crime against humanity ?
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Exactly No punishment without crime = No children taken unless parent(s) were convicted of a significant crime against children.
99% of injustices infamily courts would disappear
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Definitely a supporter. However if it did come into being there would need to also be mandatory training on what would need to be reported, or there could be mayhem with everything becoming a report. With mandatory reporting I believe there would need to a separate law on GROOMING and ALSO to be reported as it is the pre cursor to much abuse and easy to spot once understood. Currently grooming is not taken into consideration until a sexual allegation is made, and the abused are silenced through fear for many years
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Thanks for your comment, Marilyn. Do you think this kind of training is something we should add to social work degrees?
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There is so much to be considered, but we have to keep in mind that while adults in authority cogitate, youngsters are still being harmed and victimized.
We need more open discussion certainly – and we need more people willing to be responsible for searching out the truth. I find too many seem willing to collect the perks of increased status – but very few prepared to accept the responsibility that the increased salary warrants.
Open discussion and sharing experiences can only help – but getting people of the right calibre is never easy. There is too, the risk of contamination and corruption; always an unknown risk in too many cases, as well as being very hard to prove.
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Thank you, Maureen. People who care about this work can be hard to come by. How can we encourage dedication and passion inside the system?
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Reblogged this on Musings of a Penpusher and commented:
Something to thinks about for more than a minute or two.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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The fact is that schools,counsellors,midwives,nurses,and social workers all report superficial bruising or noisy altercations between parents already without need for legislation;The sad fact is that children are removed unecessarily for normal bumps and bruises and normal paren’ts disputes whether there is legislation or not.
As for abuse causing deep psychological trauma Natasha ,how on earth could anyone identify and then report such a thing with any certainty ?? Similarly if some hired gun pshcho reported it to the court how could any family deny it or defend themselves??
Sounds like a step too far to me !
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Hi FA, we could say the same thing about sexual abuse – unless you’re witnessing it first hand, you can’t say for sure. What most people do is go on odd behaviour of a child or behaviour that appears to suggest trauma of some kind. Those symptoms manifest in both physical and psychological harm.
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No,no, the difference is that even a very young child can report what uncle Fred did with his “willie” but even a near adult teenager would be hard put to report “abuse causing deep psychological trauma” . Something that defies definition and is open to any amount of different interpretations .
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I disagree with you FA.
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I am a child sex abuse victim. For three years a sadist used me as a sex toy. I am represented by the Jimmy Saville lawyers, Slater Gorden. The organisation concerned has conceded liability.
In two years, three consultant forensic psychiatrists and leading counsel cannot find any damaged it caused me.
I will illustrate the problems as follows. Say, you go for a surgical smear test and the practitioner takes the opportunity to sexually molest you without your knowledge. What you don’t know doesn’t hurt you. For a child, it is only when you grow up that you understand what was done to you was wrong.
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In support of your comment, it is worth watching the BAFTA documentary CHOSEN with three Real Stories. I was amazed to hear that the boys did NOT admit to their abuse by their teachers, when asked by their parents.
Only 30 years later did they dare to come out!
MANDATENOW.org.uk is their site with link to the video.
Isn’t it OBVIOUS by now that
1. EVERY removal is an abuse to the child; even if parents are violent! Children do need contact with the person they’ve been FAMILIAR with!
2. there are FAR more institutional failings than ‘successes’!
3. ALL contacts with their rules are a disgrace of abuse.
A Scottish abuse survivor has taken it upon himself to petition the Scottish Parliament to make reporting mandatory. It can be viewed online this Thursday.
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The proposal is meaningless. Who do you report abuse to. Baby P, Danial Pelak, Rothrham, Rochdale, Oxford ….. the police, health authorities, local authority were involved all the way through. The OfStEd and Care Quality Commission ‘whistle blowing’ hotlines are ineffective, where is NSPCC Childline in all of this?
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In fact the proposal is stupid beyond belief. You would have to prove that a person witnessed events and understood that those events were what was later proven to be abuse.
The police interviewed Baby P’s mother, the police repeatedly attended Danial Pelak’s home, the police repeatedly witnessed the events in Rotherham and in all cases, the evidence base was insufficient to act.
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