How to Become Mandated Reporter

Mandated reporters are citizens who have a job or are in a profession that makes them legally obligated to notify law enforcement or adult/child protective services about a known or suspected risk to any member of a protected demographic. Protected population members include children, the unborn, the elderly and disabled. Even though a non-mandated reporter can and should report any suspected abuse, he is never required by law to do this. Mandated reporters, on the other hand, must report this information or face the loss of their jobs and professional licenses and/or even criminal and civil liability.

Instructions

1. Become a health care professional. If you become a doctor, nurse, X-ray technician, social worker, therapist or counselor, you will be required to immediately contact the law or social services whenever any information concerning actual or suspected abuse comes to your attention. Frequent and unexplained lacerations, abrasions and/or burns to the body and external genitalia of children, the elderly and the disabled are classic indicators of abuse. The reporting of abuse is always an exception to the patient-doctor privilege and medical confidentiality.

2. Become a clergyperson. As a priest, minister, rabbi or religious practitioner, you must report knowledge of abuse just as all health care workers must. An exception will be made to this reporting requirement if a person admits to you her acts of abuse during a religious ceremony or in a confessional.

3. Become a member of the law enforcement community. As a Humane Society officer, probation officer, firefighter or animal control officer, you will have the same law enforcement reporting obligations as an actual police officer. If in the course of your law enforcement work, you find illegal drugs or drug-making paraphernalia where children are present, this is considered child abuse and must be reported. You also must report to your law enforcement superiors instances of domestic violence involving threats to a child or violations of orders of protection concerning a child, an elderly or disabled person.

4. Work in a facility for the elderly or disabled. All administrators and employees of hospitals, nursing homes, senior citizen centers and hospices are required to report any patient abuse or neglect. If you work in a nursing home, you must be on the lookout for physical, mental, sexual or financial abuse such as patients who are verbally or emotionally mistreated, insulted or humiliated. Forbidding patients to get out of bed or denying them food is abuse. You must report any of these circumstances to your superiors. If your superiors do not make a report to social services or law enforcement, you are responsible to follow through on your own to higher authorities.

5. Become a teacher or take a job where a part of your duties puts you in direct contact with children. Even if you are a school bus driver, day care employee or athletic trainer, you will have an obligation to report any situation in which a child has unexplained injuries, burns, cuts or broken bones. You should also be suspicious of when a child appears to be unwilling to change for gym or participate in physical education class, exhibits fantasy or infantile behavior, or demonstrates unusual sexual, seductive or promiscuous behavior or knowledge. These are classic signs of physical or sexual abuse and must be reported to your superiors or directly to law enforcement and social services.

6. Work in the social services field. If you take a job as a public assistance worker, child support agency caseworker, group home worker, or become a foster parent, you must report any suspicion you may have that a child has been physically abused or neglected. Be on the lookout for a child who has contracted a sexually transmitted disease, a sure sign of sexual abuse. If you are aware of parental substance abuse or a pregnant mother's use of illegal substances, you are required to report to your superiors because these are also classified as child abuse or neglect.

7. Become a photographic print processor who develops negatives, slides or prints. Elderly and disabled adults or children are often the unwitting victims of pornography. You must report any instance in which a sexually explicit film comes into your possession or is in your workplace.

8. Become a banker or a financial planner. As a finance professional, if you see unusual withdrawals from the accounts of elderly or disabled depositors, forgery or the purchase of expensive items, this can represent financial exploitation by a caretaker and is considered adult abuse. Also be on the lookout for changes in powers of attorney and transfers of property by an elderly or disabled person who you believe is unable to handle her own affairs. You are required to report this to law enforcement as well as adult protective services.

Tips & Warnings

• Most acts of sexual abuse against children are committed by someone they know.

• Most acts of abuse and violence against the elderly and disabled are committed by trusted caretakers or family.

• More than half of abused children become abusers as adults.

• More than 90 percent of all people incarcerated were abused as children.

References

• "Confidentiality, Privilege, and Child Abuse Reporting"; Rece Schultz; 1990
• "Elder mistreatment: abuse, neglect, and exploitation in an aging America"; Bonnie R.J., Wallace, R.B.; 2002

Resources

• Child Abuse Information
• Domestic Violence, Elder and Child Abuse Information
• Elder and Disabled Abuse Information