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Teachers’ Understanding and Practice of Mandatory Reporting of Child Maltreatment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2017

Meredith Falkiner ,
Donald Thomson  and
Andrew Day
Meredith Falkiner*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia
Donald Thomson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia
Andrew Day
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia
*
address for correspondence: Meredith Falkiner, Department of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia. E-mail: mfalkine@deakin.edu.au
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Abstract

Across the eight jurisdictions of Australia, mandatory reporting obligations and thresholds for reporting vary. Teachers are one group of the professionals who are mandated to report child maltreatment, yet some teachers are still reluctant to make such a report. This paper examines the barriers that discourage teachers from reporting child maltreatment and also whether teachers consider it necessary to question a child about the maltreatment before they decide if a report should be made. Thirty semi-structured interviews with Victorian primary school teachers were thematically analysed and revealed that inadequate and inconsistent mandatory reporting training, the need for certainty before initiating a report and the ambiguous concept of neglect were barriers to teachers identifying and reporting child maltreatment. Analyses further revealed that teachers gather evidence to confirm or disconfirm their suspicions of maltreatment by questioning the suspected child victim. The consequences of this practice are discussed along with recommendations to help overcome the barriers to making a formal report when child maltreatment is suspected.

Keywords

child abusechild maltreatmentchild protectionmandatory reportinginterviewing childrenVictoria
Type
Articles
Information
Children Australia , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 38 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017 

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