Mandatory Reporting in Community Service for Child Abuse: An Ethical and Professional Practice

This article discusses the ethical and professional practice of mandatory reporting in community service for child abuse. It covers the legislation, statistics, and downsides of mandatory reporting. The article also talks about universal reporting and the negative fallouts of the practice. The subject is community service and the course code is not mentioned. The document type is an essay and the assignment type is not mentioned. The college/university is not mentioned.

Running Head: ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
1
ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

Running Head: ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Mandatory Reporting in Community Service
As per the statistics and data available on the website of Australian Government, it can be
observed that the in the Australia, more than 6 children die because of child abuse and ignorance
around it, daily. This statistic comes from a well-developed nation. With 3.2 million cases being
reported every year from the Australia, one may imagine the actual number of cases, including
the cases which go unnoticed. In Western Australia, the legislation covering mandatory reporting
of child sexual abuse is the Children and Community Services Act 2004. (Lynne, Gifford, Evans
& Rosch, 2015).
In the year 2007, the government decided to introduce the concept of the mandatory child
reporting in the area of sexual abuse towards children. The major sexual abuse has been faced
during the classes or when the professors are in contact with the children and families. Due to the
overload of the system the other systems were not taken into consideration which did not fell
under the category of mandatory reporting (Australian Government, 2018).
Child abuse is not only one of the biggest evils in human society but also one of the most
neglected and ignored the issue of all times. The victims are all juveniles who do not dare to
speak against the abuser in fear of the pre-established trauma. This fear, as a result, develops
distorted and disturbed psyche, which is a common thing to be observed in adults who suffered
child abuse in their childhood (Kenny & Abreu, 2016). According to a study from aifs.gov.in
statistics suggests that the data of the state and territory, with comparisons to previous years have
been jot down below. In 2017-18, about 159,000 children were in contact with child protection
services: a rate of 28.7 per 1,000 children (Australian Government, 2018). And thereafter just
half of the cases has been taken for the purpose of the investigation, which equals to only 7% of
children, not all children received the proper care and protection order, and out-of-home care

Running Head: ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
placement. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children can be observed to be represented
overly under the child protection system, which comes to at 8 times the rate for non-Indigenous
children. Children from very remote areas had the highest rates of substantiations, at 4 times that
of children from major cities. Emotional abuse was the most common type of substantiated
maltreatment that was received by children aging from 10-15 (Walsh & Jones, 2016).
Child abuse is one such issue that needs to be addressed, then neglected, to save children
from a life full of trauma and give better oncoming generations to society. 80% of the youth in
the Australia says while being examined and counseled for psychological disorders that they
have been abused as a child. To keep a check on this evil, the legislation has established several
norms, one being the Mandatory Reporting in community service (Ioannou & Serafeim, 2017). It
is a term used for the practice of a group of people who report child abuse or suspicious activities
around it to the government (Ho, Gross & Bettencourt, 2017).
Any maltreatment with children can affect their contribution towards society negatively,
mandatory reporting is an essential step in community service. Children are the basis of a
community's future, every community must strive to protect them and ensure a safe and sound
environment for them to grow in, free from any kind of abuse. In response to the 'battered child
syndrome', the Australia mandated the reporting of child abuse in 1963. These serious lobbying
efforts on mandatory reporting led to political debates in Australia, as a result of which,
Tasmania introduced mandatory laws in 1974 (Faith-Slaker, 2015).
The application of mandatory reporting was done keeping in mind the regular interaction
of children with responsible adults. As a result, registered health care professionals,
psychologists, social workers, teachers, counselors, residential service professionals, and the law
enforcers were appointed as mandatory reporters. These reporters, when coming into contact

Running Head: ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
with children and suspect maltreatment with them are bound to report it to the government
authorities.
Another approach towards the curbing of child abuse is Universal Reporting, which is an
advanced form on Mandatory Reporting. In Universal Reporting, all persons, irrespective of
profession, when suspect any maltreatment or neglect with a child must report it to the concerned
government authorities. For instance, neighbors, friends, and peers are the best potential
reporters of child abuse. Similarly, any witnesses of child abuse would be mandated to file a
report regarding the same. By increasing the mandated reporters to every individual, the goal is
to reduce child abuse victims by early intervention and prevent an injury from becoming scar
(Alarid, 2016).
The data from 2011 to 2016 has been presented above to get an understanding of different
territories. While mandatory reporting is a significant step towards curbing the evil of child
abuse and universal reporting is yet another remarkable step in substantiating the reports of child
abuse, this practice comes along with some downsides. After the implementation of universal
reporting and mandatory reporting, the amount of reports received by the government authorities
has significantly increased causing a lot of workloads and financial burden (Australian
Government, 2018). Concerns, like the decline in authenticity and quality of reporting, have been
raised by many officials after the implementation of universal reporting. Moreover, concerns like

Running Head: ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
false reporting caused by unsubstantiated reports may lead to negative impacts on the child and
their family. For instance, a false report may tense relationship between the accused and the
alleged victim and their family. Children can be psychologically and emotionally burdened with
the false accusations made against their close ones. False claims could lead to broken trust in the
family and turmoil in the child's psyche during the essential years of their growth (Cramer,
Singh, Flaherty & Young, 2017).
The major perk of mandatory reporting, in spite of the workload and expenditure it brings
along, is the awareness of a neglected issue. With the implementation of Mandatory Reporting in
the Australia and many other countries implemented similar programs and raised public
awareness. For instance, total 164987 cases have been investigated in case of the child abuse and
of these investigations, 133329 were finalized by the end of the year 2016 and around 60989
cases were substantiated (AIFS, (2017).
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that child abuse is a disturbing occurrence
throughout the globe. The negative impacts of child maltreatment are uncountable as it destroys

Running Head: ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
a human resource which further contaminates its pool. Several legislations have implemented
mandatory reporting to intervene and stop child harassment at the initial stages itself. While, the
Australia might implement universal reporting, making every adult a mandated reporter of child
abuse, hence is keeping a check on child abuse in every nook and corner. However, by reading
the theoretical implementation of this practice, a lot of negative fallouts seem to dominate. In
case of Australia the child abuse comes to be one of the most crucial issues and this again has
been taken as one of the initiatives by Australian Government.

Running Head: ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
References
AIFS, (2017). Mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect. Retrieved from
https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/mandatory-reporting-child-abuse-and-neglect
Alarid, L. F. (2016). Community-based corrections. Cengage Learning.
Australian Government, (2018). Families, policy and the law. Retrieved from
https://aifs.gov.au/publications/families-policy-and-law/14-mandatory-reporting-laws
Cramer, G. R., Singh, S. R., Flaherty, S., & Young, G. J. (2017). The progress of US hospitals in
addressing community health needs. American journal of public health, 107(2), 255-261.
Faith-Slaker, A. (2015). What We Know and Need to Know About Pro Bono Service
Delivery. SCL Rev., 67, 267.
Ho, G. W., Gross, D. A., & Bettencourt, A. (2017). Universal mandatory reporting policies and
the odds of identifying child physical abuse. American journal of public health, 107(5),
709-716.
Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2017). The consequences of mandatory corporate sustainability
reporting. Harvard Business School research working paper, (11-100).
Kenny, M. C., & Abreu, R. L. (2016). Mandatory reporting of child maltreatment for counselors:
An innovative training program. Journal of Child and Adolescent Counseling, 2(2), 112-
124.
Lynne, E. G., Gifford, E. J., Evans, K. E., & Rosch, J. B. (2015). Barriers to Reporting Child
Maltreatment Do Emergency Medical Services Professionals Fully Understand Their
Role as Mandatory Reporters?. North Carolina medical journal, 76(1), 13-18.
Walsh, W. A., & Jones, L. M. (2016). A statewide study of the public's knowledge of child abuse
reporting laws. Journal of public child welfare, 10(5), 561-579.