Resource Center

This paper was originally published in the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Interdisciplinary Health Team Care Conference, which took place September 17-18, 1992 in Chicago, Illinois.  It is reproduced here with the permission of the authors.

The purpose of this research report is to help prevent physical child abuse by identifying and examining the reporting patterns of professionals, including public school personnel, clergy and allied health professionals.

While educators, clergy and allied health professionals can be important in the early identification of suspected child abuse, they are almost always outside the networks of professionals traditionally associated with child abuse. They are usually not included in education and training opportunities provided through child protective services and other agencies. They are almost never included on treatment teams. They usually have very limited opportunities to develop skills in the identification of abuse or to understand how the reporting, treatment and prevention mechanisms established to protect children work. On the other hand, in most states educators, clergy and allied health professionals are required by law to report suspected child abuse.

This research report focuses on these three professions or groups of professions in order to emphasize the importance of their inclusion in child protection systems, the contribution they can make to child protection, and to begin to explore what we know about their reporting behavior.

Results of our study have significantly increased our knowledge base about the education, continuing education, and inservice training needs of helping professionals regarding their reporting of suspected physical child abuse. It is the hope of the investigators that increasing our knowledge base will enable workplace organizations, federal, state, professional, and community public policy and legislative bodies to provide appropriate public policy and legislation.