Implications for Practice, Education, Policy, and Research

This chapter presents a discussion of practice, education, policy, and research implications pertaining to the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect. The first section centres on implications for practice in urban, suburban, rural, and remote environments and includes aspects such as working with colleagues, reporting in the workplace, and discussing the limits of confidentiality. What follows are implications for educators of future mandatory reporters. These implications explore educating students in the typology of child abuse and neglect, working in Northern Canada, and the importance of reflection. This chapter also includes suggestions for training that can be incorporated into the curriculum such as reflection, experiential exercises, case vignette, and simulation. The latter half of the chapter explores policy implications with specific attention to data collection and analysis of reported children and families in an effort to detect and respond to racial disparities in the child welfare system. At a national level, implications also include greater consistency in mandatory reporting legislation between provinces and territories. The chapter concludes with implications for research and focuses specifically on furthering our understanding of decision-making processes and disclosure within child sexual abuse.

Strategies to Maintain the Relationship

Following the decision to report or not report child maltreatment, many mandatory reporters are concerned with maintaining the relationship with the family, and this concern is examined more extensively in this chapter. This chapter describes typical client feelings and reactions to a report of suspected child abuse and neglect as well as the potential impacts on the relationship. A comprehensive overview of strategies to maintain the relationship is covered, including engagement strategies, reporting strategies, information strategies, affect regulation strategies (for mandatory reporter and client), advocacy strategies, resource strategies, and strategies that take culture and ethnicity into account. At the conclusion of this chapter is a conceptual model outlining the reporting decision-making factors and the strategies to maintain the relationship.

Reporting to Child Protection Services

This chapter discusses the steps mandatory reporters take when contacting Child Protection Services. Included in this chapter is information regarding to whom the report is made, the types of information that Child Protection Services may require, timelines for reporting, how to handle emergency situations, and organizational policies for reporting. The chapter also includes attention to reporting anonymously and challenges for mandatory reporters who attempt to function as child protection investigators. Objectives include understanding the role and function of Child Protection Services, exploring what information is required by Child Protection Services when making a report regarding a suspicion of child abuse and neglect, appreciating the rationale behind an anonymous report to Child Protection Services, identifying the benefits and challenges of reporting in the workplace, and summarizing how to protect client confidentiality when reporting.

Risk Factors in Child Abuse and Neglect

This chapter examines the risk factors for child abuse and neglect from the perspective of the child, parent, family, community, and culture. There are many issues that may contribute to child abuse, but some factors increase the risk to children and make them more vulnerable to abuse. They can be found in the background of parents, in the environmental situation, and in attributes of the child themselves. The child’s culture and level of community support may also be risk factors in child abuse and/or neglect. Risk factors are characteristics associated with child maltreatment and may or may not be direct causes.

Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect in Northern Canada

Canada has a wide expanse of geographic terrain that encompasses urban, sub-urban, rural, and remote areas. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the unique challenges of mandatory reporters living and working in northern parts of provincial and territorial Canada. The chapter opens with a discussion of how the north has been defined historically and by Indigenous and settler perspectives. The chapter proceeds to examine the economic and social context of northern Canada before moving into a review of the challenges facing mandatory reporters. The chapter offers suggestions to mandatory reporters to balance their statutory responsibilities with the contextual reality of living in the community.

Following the Report

This chapter discusses what happens after a report to Child Protection Services (CPS), including foundations of CPS authority, contact with the reporting source, interviews with children, parental consent, physical examinations, interviewer skills, service to Indigenous children, and practice models. This content is embedded in a demonstration of the child protection services path. By clarifying the processes and potential outcomes of a child protection investigation, this chapter aims to increase mandatory reporters’ comfort level and knowledge base when contacting CPS. The information provided herein about child protection investigations aims to increase reporters’ sense of confidence and credibility when reporting, which may subsequently enhance their feeling of efficacy when advocating for the family.

Disclosure of Child Abuse and Neglect

The purpose of this chapter is to examine disclosures of child maltreatment by children and youth. When children and youth disclose abuse or neglect, this increases the possibility of access to supportive and therapeutic resources for these vulnerable individuals. In turn, access to resources can mitigate the risk to their health and well-being. The chapter first presents the classifications of disclosures as they have come to be understood in the literature. An exploration of disclosures by children and youth with specific attention to age, gender, and type of maltreatment is essential to understand how disclosure differs between children and youth. Finally, the chapter addresses how mandatory reporters should respond to a disclosure with specific recommendations.

Protective Factors in Child Abuse and Neglect

This chapter examines the protective factors for child maltreatment from child, parent, family, and community aspects as there are individual differences in how children, parents, families, and communities respond to maltreatment. Protective factors have not been studied as extensively or rigorously as risk factors; however, they can promote health and well-being for maltreated children. These factors can also help to develop interventions to reduce impairment following exposure to child maltreatment. Resilience is another term for protective factors and focuses on examining children’s capacity to overcome or manage child abuse and neglect and achieve positive developmental outcomes. Despite the growing emphasis on resilience and protective factors, it must be understood that the existence of protective factors does not deny the negative consequences of child maltreatment or that maltreatment is wrong.

Ethical and Legal Issues in Mandatory Reporting

The purpose of this chapter is to explore ethical and legal concerns that relate to the mandatory reporting of child maltreatment including informed consent, confidentiality, reasonable suspicion, and penalties for false or nonreporting. Informed consent with individuals with limited English language skills is specifically addressed. In addition, the chapter provides an overview of the perceived benefits and challenges of mandatory reporting and who is considered a mandatory reporter in Canada. Documentation is discussed, and a case example is provided. The chapter discusses mandatory reporting legislation and both the benefits and criticism of this legislation and recording suspicions of child maltreatment will conclude the chapter.

The Decision to Report

This chapter presents a mandatory reporting model outlining the decision-making factors within the context of reporting suspected child abuse and neglect. The chapter begins by examining the literature on decision-making and child maltreatment and then focuses on neurological and emotional aspects of decision-making. The chapter moves to delineating the empirical factors (legal, clinician, situational, professional, and relationship) associated with mandatory reporting and specific domains within each factor. A case example provides an illustration of the decision-making process in a mandatory reporting situation.