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@littlebug: I agree. I am a SW who does child protection consultation in a large pediatric hospital. The mandate is "reasonable suspicion" here. I agree that the teacher or other school staff could have asked that child for clarification on what he had written before reporting it, but if he hadn't said anything else then I think she did the right thing with the limited information she had. I've seen it go both ways but the most upsetting is when you see a child come to the hospital with a serious injury and people come forward to say they had concerns but not "proof" so they hadn't reported before. It happens more than you think.
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@littlebug: I think we're on the same page. If you have a hunch that something is wrong, then you have a reason to think that, probably based on some pattern of behavior or speech that seems "off," right? That's the type of thinking people are expected to do before making a report about an isolated incident that is not clearly and immediately endangering a child. Therefore, a report based on your gut feeling developed as a result of interactions with a child or family would be a reasonable report.
What is not reasonable is to make a report based solely on a single sentence that a 7 year-old wrote about being beaten by Daddy when one does not have any other sense that something is wrong or any indication that physical beating and abuse is what the child meant.
The job of CPS is to investigate and see if there is evidence of abuse or neglect and then to act if there is a problem. They aren't the only people who should exercise reason. Anyone who makes a report has to make a judgment call first, and what I am attempting to point out is that when people are making those judgment calls, they need to use reason and common sense.
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@bushelandapeck: in our training, we had to watch videos of teachers asking open ended questions like, "Tell me about what you wrote." If the child was like, oh it's nothing or I don't want to talk about it or seemed otherwise worried, then you'd report it. But if they automatically responded something like, oh yeah, so my daddy and I play checkers and he always wins! I hate that! Then you'd know it was a misunderstanding.
You wouldn't ask them, "Does your dad hit you?" And set them up to have to cover up for their dad. -
@travellingbee: exactly! I think that's totally what should have happened but most people I've talked with don't know how to ask non leading questions. We do a lot of psycho ed with providers about this very issue.
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