States find loopholes in mandatory reporting laws meant to protect children

More than 60 years ago, Colorado policymakers embraced the idea that early intervention could prevent child abuse and save lives. The state’s requirement that certain professionals tell officials when they suspect a child has been abused or neglected was one of the first mandatory reporting laws in the nation.

Since then, mandatory reporting laws have expanded nationally to include more types of abuse, including neglect, which now accounts for the majority of reports, and has increased the number of professions required to report. In some states, all adults must report what they suspect may be abuse or neglect.

But now there are efforts in Colorado and other states, including New York and California, to roll back those laws, saying the result has been too many unfounded reports and that they disproportionately harm families who are poor, black or indigenous, or have members with Disabilities.

“There’s a long, depressing history behind the approach that our primary response to a struggling family is informing,” says Mical Raz, a physician and historian at the University of Rochester in New York. “There is now a large body of evidence showing that more reporting is not associated with better outcomes for children.”

Looking for balance

Stephanie Villafuerte, Colorado’s child protection ombudsman, oversees a task force to reexamine the state’s mandatory reporting laws. She says the group seeks to balance the need to report legitimate cases of abuse and neglect with the desire to weed out inappropriate reporting.

“This is designed to help people who are disproportionately affected,” Villafuerte says. “I hope it’s the combination of these efforts that can make the difference.”

Some critics fear that changes to the law could result in lost abuse cases. Medical and childcare workers on the task force have expressed concern about legal liability. While it’s rare for people to be criminally charged for failing to report, they can also face civil liability or professional repercussions, including threats to their licenses.

Being reported to child protection services is becoming more and more common. More than 1 in 3 children in the United States will be the subject of a child abuse and neglect investigation by the time they turn 18, according to the most widely cited estimate, a 2017 study funded by the Department of Health and Human Services for the childhood office

Black and Native American families, poor families, and parents or children with disabilities experience even more oversight. Research has found that among these groups, fathers are more likely to lose parental rights and children are more likely to end up in foster care.

In the overwhelming majority of investigations, no evidence of abuse or neglect is found. However, researchers who study how these investigations affect families describe them as frightening and isolating.

In Colorado, the number of reports of child abuse and neglect has increased 42 percent in the past decade, reaching a record 117,762 last year, according to state data. About 100,000 more calls to the hotline were not counted as reports because they were requests for information or dealt with issues such as child support or adult protection, Colorado Department of Human Services officials say .

There is no increase in documented cases of abuse

The increase in reports can be attributed to a policy of encouraging a wide range of professionals, including school and medical personnel, therapists, coaches, clergy, firefighters, veterinarians, dentists and social workers to call a hotline direct whenever they have a concern.

These calls do not reflect an increase in abuse. More than two-thirds of reports received by Colorado agencies do not meet the investigative threshold. Of the children whose cases are assessed, 21% have suffered abuse or neglect. The actual number of justified cases has not increased over the past decade.

While studies don’t show that mandatory reporting laws keep kids safe, the Colorado task force reported in January, there is evidence of harm. “Mandatory reporting disproportionately affects families of color” by initiating contact between child protective services and families who typically do not raise concerns of abuse or neglect, the task force said.

The task force says it is looking at whether better screening could mitigate “the disproportionate impact of mandatory reporting on under-resourced communities, communities of color and people with disabilities.”

The task force noted that the only way to report concerns about a child is with a formal report to a hotline. However, many of these calls are not to report any abuse, but to try to connect children and families with resources such as food or housing assistance.

Hotline callers may want to help, but families who are the target of false allegations of abuse and neglect rarely see it that way.

That includes Meighen Lovelace, a rural Colorado resident who asked KFF Health News not to reveal her hometown for fear of attracting unwanted attention from local officials. For Lovelace’s daughter, who is neurodivergent and has physical disabilities, the reports began when she entered preschool at age 4 in 2015. The teachers and medical providers who made the reports often suggested that the agency of human services in the county could help Lovelace’s family. But the investigations that followed were invasive and traumatic.

“Our biggest fear is, ‘Are you going to take our kids?'” says Lovelace, who is an advocate for the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, an organization that lobbies for the civil rights of people with disabilities. “We are afraid to ask for help. We are prevented from accessing services by fear of child welfare.”

State and county human services officials said they could not comment on specific cases.

A ‘hotline’ to connect families to services

The Colorado task force plans to suggest clarifying the definitions of abuse and neglect under the state’s mandatory reporting statute. Mandatory whistleblowers should not “make a report solely because of a family/child’s race, class, or gender,” or because of inappropriate housing, furniture, income, or clothing. Additionally, there should not be a report based solely on “the disability status of the child, parent or guardian,” according to the group’s draft recommendation.

The task force plans to recommend additional training for mandated informants, help for professionals deciding whether to make a call and an alternate phone number, or “hotline,” for cases where callers believe a family he needs material assistance, rather than surveillance. .

Critics say these changes could leave more children vulnerable to unreported abuse.

“I worry about adding systems like the hotline, that kids who are in real danger will slip through the cracks and not get help,” says Hollynd Hoskins, an attorney who represents child abuse victims. Hoskins has sued professionals who failed to report their suspicions.

The Colorado task force includes health and education officials, prosecutors, victim advocates, county child welfare representatives and attorneys, as well as five people with experience in the child welfare system. It plans to finalize its recommendations early next year with the hope that state lawmakers will consider policy changes by 2025. Any law could take several years to implement.

Other sites have recently considered changes to restrict, rather than expand, abuse reporting. In New York City, teachers are being trained to think twice before making a report, while New York State introduced a hotline to help connect families with resources like housing and childcare. In California, a state task force aiming to move “mandatory reporting to community support” is planning recommendations similar to those in Colorado.

Among those advocating for change are people with experience in the child welfare system. They include Maleeka Jihad, who heads the Denver-based MJCF Coalition, which advocates abolishing mandatory reporting along with the rest of the child welfare system, citing harms to black, Native American and Latino communities.

“Mandatory reporting is another way to keep us watched and policed ​​by whiteness,” says Jihad, who as a child was removed from the care of a loving father and temporarily placed in the foster care system. The reform is not enough, he says. “We know what we need, and it’s usually funding and resources.”

Some of those resources like affordable housing and child care don’t exist at a sufficient level for all Colorado families who need them, Jihad says.

There are other services, but it’s a matter of finding them. Lovelace says the reports decreased after the family got the help they needed, in the form of a Medicaid waiver that paid for specialized care for their daughter’s disabilities. Her daughter is now in seventh grade and doing well.

None of the social workers who visited the family ever mentioned the resignation, Lovelace says. “I really don’t think they knew.”

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