following reports and lack of support in dealing with 'vicarious trauma' are .... Queensland Parliament. http://www.qld.gov.au/html/fordeinquiry/introduction.pdf.
SUPPORTING MANDATORY REPORTING IN SCHOOLS
Dr Elspeth McInnes Lecturer, De Lisse Institute of Early Childhood and Family Studies University of South Australia
Paper presented at the The Role of Schools in Crime Prevention Conference convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology in conjunction with the Department of Education, Employment and Training, Victoria, and Crime Prevention Victoria and held in Melbourne, 30 September – 1 October 2002
Introduction The paper proposes support frameworks to respond to the needs of school personnel dealing with mandatory reporting of child abuse. Lack of information about child abuse, lack of knowledge about reporting obligations and procedures, lack of confidence in the outcomes for children following reports and lack of support in dealing with ‘vicarious trauma’ are some of the identified issues for mandated reporters in the school setting. Recent research in Victoria indicates that making a report about child abuse has become or remains a discretionary action for many professionals and that most mandated reporters find it difficult or complex to decide whether abuse has occurred and when to report it (Goddard et al 2001). The paper suggests some directions for support frameworks to meet these needs. This paper is generated from my role in teaching in the Bachelor in Early Childhood Education at the De Lissa Institute of Early Childhood and Family Studies and the need to prepare and support teaching professionals in their role in child protection. Teachers spend a great deal of time in contact with children and, along with parents and police, are one of the most frequent sources of reports which result in investigations (AIHW 2001). There is increasing evidence however that the rise of a mandatory reporting and a forensic investigation approach has not improved outcomes for children. Currently in Australia there is considerable debate amongst professionals in the child protection field about the efficacy of mandatory reporting in preventing or reducing child abuse. The efficacy of current child protection approaches has been called into question by child welfare agencies in jurisdictions around Australia with three states – New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia undertaking reviews or inquiries during this year into child protection services in those states whilst Queensland conducted the Forde Commission of Inquiry into the Abuse of Children in Queensland Institutions in 1998-99. A key concern across state jurisdictions is that the rising volume of reports has restricted departments’ capacities to investigate and to provide services to support families, whilst re-abuse and child deaths are occurring in families which have already been identified to the relevant department through existing reporting mechanisms. The Child and Family Welfare Association of Australia released national figures in late August noting that in every state more than 10 percent of children who had experienced substantiated abuse were subject to further abuse within 12 months, despite intervention by child protection. Whereas previously governments have introduced or expanded mandatory reporting provisions to ensure that children needing services are identified, it is becoming increasingly clear that identification does not in itself ensure that children receive the support and protection they need. As the number of reports escalates, departments have responded by developing threshold criteria which define whether the report will be investigated and the type of response needed. Increases in the scope of mandatory reporting are implicated as a factor driving up the number of reports. Other factors may include increased incidence due to increased stresses on families, increased awareness of child abuse and decreasing tolerance of child abuse. South Australia has had mandatory reporting since 1969 requiring police, education, children’s services and health workers to report reasonable suspicion of abuse. In 1996-97, 10,094 reports were made to Family and Youth Services, of which 57% were investigated and 25.5% were substantiated. By 2000-01 there were 16,314 reports – an increase of 61% - with 31% investigated and12% substantiated (AIHW 2001).
A similar pattern of rising reports and declining proportions of investigations and substantiations is present in other states with broad mandatory reporting requirements. Mandatory reporting was introduced in New South Wales in 1977, and recently extended under the NSW Children's and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998. The annual report data from the New South Wales Department of Community Services shows that reports rose by 33% between 1999-2000 and 200020001, yet the proportion classified as notifications requiring consideration for a child protection response, dropped from 82% in 1999-2000 to 67% in 2000-2001. In 1999-2000 the proportion of finalised investigated notifications substantiated was 46% but following the introduction of the new mandatory reporting legislation and centralized call centre intake model, an estimated 38% were substantiated in 2000-01, showing a drop of 8% from the previous reporting period (DOCS 2000,2001). Victorian mandatory reporting legislation, requiring police, teachers, doctors and nurses to report, has been in place since 1993. In the year following its introduction, reports from non-mandated reporters soared, producing an overall increase of 39% in the number of reports. Across jurisdictions with broad mandatory reporting provisions, the departmental response to increased demand for child protection services has been to develop an increasing emphasis on reporting, investigation and substantiation in place of providing community based family support services. Not all states have broad mandatory reporting provisions. Queensland has a limited form of mandatory reporting under the Health Amendment Act 1980 requiring doctors to report child abuse to the Department of Health. An outcome of the Forde Inquiry (1999) was an amendment to the Child Protection Act 1999 requiring the mandatory reporting of any harm to a child in residential care that comes to the attention of a departmental or licensed care service provider. New child protection strategic planning initiatives and funding has been committed to shift the emphasis from investigations to provision of early intervention and support services (Forde Implementation Monitoring Committee 2001). Western Australia does not have mandatory reporting legislation but has recently completed a review of the research evidence on the efficacy of mandatory reporting which also presents a case for an increased emphasis on interagency co-ordination and provision of family support services in preference to the forensic investigative approach which has come to be associated with mandatory reporting (Harries and Clare 2002). As this brief overview suggests, mandatory reporting is increasingly being understood as a limited child protection strategy which has strengths in identifying children who are being neglected or abused but also carries serious risks when not matched with the necessary resources to respond appropriately to the volume of reports. The recent research by Goddard et al (2001) into Victorian community professionals’ reporting practices notes that there is confusion about when to report, and a lack of confidence in the response to reports is affecting willingness to report, despite the risk of fines. Other issues embedded in debates about mandatory reporting include the willingness of young people to seek help without fear of being 'reported' and the impact on families subjected to investigations where abuse or neglect is not confirmed. This brings me to the two main points I wish to make in this presentation: First, that teaching staff approaches to child abuse prevention are most effective in the context of a whole-of –school ‘child safe policy’ which offers a range of institutional supports to teachers working with children at risk of abuse.
Secondly, that as mandatory reporting as a ‘child abuse identification’ tool is coming under increasing pressure due to the limits on resources and services for children and families after the report, there is an argument for schools to be explicitly supported as a principal site of child abuse prevention and response in partnership with child welfare agencies. Research in South Australia into the impact of training on teachers’ management of mandatory reporting, has highlighted the importance of recent training to teachers’ skills in identifying abuse, their awareness of their reporting responsibilities and their responses to children’s disclosures of abuse (Hawkins and McCallum 2001, 2001a). But as the Goddard et al (2001) study of Victorian professionals notes, there is an ongoing need for professional support, with 75% of their respondents finding it difficult to identify when abuse had occurred, and 63% experiencing difficulty in knowing when to make a report. Further, in 64% of cases where the professional DID report, they received no feedback from the department. The problems of the child protection policy and service provision environment and the documented difficulties facing teachers and other professionals as mandatory reporters, suggest the need to strengthen a community-based approach to keeping children safe. The reality is that, for many children, the community based professionals who identified the risk to their well-being and made the report, may be the most accessible and continuing source of potential support after the report. Schools are a critical community interface between children and families with the potential to work in partnership with child protection services in improving support for the child and her or his family. Mandatory reporting can set up a false sense of security in the belief that making the phone call will change the child’s situation. The reality of course is that making a report doesn’t end the process and save the child, but is simply another step in responding to the child’s needs. In making this argument I want to propose a ‘whole of organisation’ approach to support teachers and other community professionals in their child protection role as mandatory reporters, rather than the current situation of training student teachers and then leaving them to make assessments and reports in isolation, often without discernible response. A whole of school approach to supporting teachers’ role in supporting children’s safety might include: •
Adoption of an explicit child safe policy approach which is declared in school documentation, underpinned by school-wide principles of mutual respect, extending equally to staff, students and the parent community.
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Explicit school-wide leadership and support for protective behaviours education for children.
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Formal partnerships with family support service delivery agencies to provide a gateway to universally accessible information, education and counselling services to families experiencing difficulties.
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Strengthening and expanding the role of school counsellors as a source of leadership and expertise in child protection issues and as a liaison point for information from the relevant department about changes in policies or protocols.
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Inservice training to update staff knowledge about child abuse and child protection and to clarify emergent difficulties at regular intervals.
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Providing ‘child safe information’ kits to families inviting them to identify issues which may affect their ability to care for the child and identifying strategies for the school to undertake if problems occur – for example if a parent has a recurring episodic illness requiring hospitalisation, the kit would identify alternative sources of care for the child where this was needed (much like an asthma action plan identifies action in case of an asthma attack).
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Providing professionally supported confidential ‘debriefing’ sessions to individual teaching staff who are working with children experiencing abuse to enable them to express their distress, explore concerns and options and to support them in their role.
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Strengthening feedback protocols to those who have made reports to identify the department’s assessment and action in response to the report.
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Matching the departments’ forensic investigative approach to allegations of criminal child abuse - such as child sexual assault, whilst building a family needs approach where the presenting issues indicate stress and poor parenting and coping skills.
This range of suggested strategies to support mandatory reporting in schools draws on responses which have been developed in various sites to address particular issues. I hope that at least some of them will make sense as a way forward in developing child protection responses to strike a balance between supporting families to better meet their children’s needs and to ensure that schools continue to meet their obligations to children. It is clear that society needs a ‘continuous improvement’ approach to child protection. We can never be satisfied that we have done all we can and it seems that it’s time to move on from the belief that making a report is enough. The challenge is to underpin reporting structures with a broad-based collaborative approach of working in respectful partnerships with families, both within schools, and between schools and family support services and child protection agencies
References Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2001) Child Protection Australia 2000-2001, Child Welfare Series No. 29, Canberra. http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/cpa00-01/index.html. Child and Family Welfare Association of Australia, (2002) Repeat Cases of Child Abuse Demand new National Response, Media Release August 27. Department of Community Services (2000), Annual Report 1999-2000, Ashfield New South Wales. http://www.community.nsw.gov.au Department of Community Services (2001), Annual Report 2000-2001, Ashfield New South Wales. http://www.community.nsw.gov.au Forde Commission of Inquiry into the Abuse of Children in Queensland Institutions (1999) Brisbane, Queensland Parliament. http://www.qld.gov.au/html/fordeinquiry/introduction.pdf Goddard, C., Saunders, B., Stanley, J. and Tucci, J. (2001) A Study in Confusion: Factors which affect the decisions of community professionals when reporting child abuse and neglect, Victoria, Australians Against Child Abuse. Harries, M. and Clare, M. (2002) Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse: Evidence and Options, Perth, University of Western Australia. Hawkins, R. and McCallum, C. (2001) ‘Mandatory Notification Training for suspected Child Abuse and Neglect in South Australian Schools’, Child Abuse and Neglect, 25: 1603-1625. Hawkins, R. and McCallum, C. (2001a) ‘Effects of Mandatory Notification Training on the tendency to report hypothetical Cases of Child Abuse and Neglect, Child Abuse Review, 10: 301-322.
