Did I miss something?
In respect of the commerce select committee holding an inquiry into finance company collapse and what might be achieved with law change ...
... Dalziel said the country had made it mandatory to report child abuse. There was an argument for thinking along similar lines in finance.
Say what?
According to the Ministry of Health;
Is it mandatory to report abuse?
In New Zealand, it is not mandatory to report partner and child abuse.
It is surprising that Dalziel could make such a considerable error (if she has been correctly reported.) I hope it is hers and not mine. Mandatory child abuse reporting is a bad idea. More law, more criminalisation, fewer people using their brains.
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9 comments:
"Mandatory child abuse reporting is a bad idea. More law, more criminalisation, fewer people using their brains."
Erm...so less law and less criminalization are more desirable than the attempt to save kids from abuse? Don't you think that somebody who sees children be abused and doesn't report it should see some consequences?
oh, and how exactly does mandatory child abuse reporting lead to "fewer people using their brain"?
The idea has been resisted in respect of the general population because there are fish hooks.
The legally accepted definition of 'abuse' is now very broad. If mandatory reporting was enforced many people would be unable to do their jobs. How do you work constructively with someone who may be committing a 'mild' form of abuse if you are required to report them? Already a large percentage of reports made to Child Youth and Family are rejected after investigation. To remove children from low level abuse may be more damaging. So judgement and discretion are required - using one's brain.
Certainly there are some organisations which require health professionals etc to report evidence of physical abuse. That is another matter.
Abuse is abuse - even if it is a 'mild' form of it (however you want to define that one).
"If mandatory reporting was enforced many people would be unable to do their jobs."
I don't get your logic here. We should not be forced to report child abuse because it might make us uncomfortable to work with somebody who does abuse their children? I don't know...the knowledge that somebody abuses their kids makes me MUCH more uncomfortable than the thought that I will have to report them.
Abuse, especially psychological, can be difficult for a lay person to define. If you report someone for whatever you decide it is, how do you maintain the relationship with the parent and continue to work to improve the situation for the child? Do you risk worsening the situation for the child by driving the parent 'underground'? Do you worsen the situation for the child by increasing the stress level of the parent? People aren't exactly queueing up to take 'abused' children into their homes. Especially if they have children of their own. The situation is just not as black and white as you would like it to be.
"If you report someone for whatever you decide it is, how do you maintain the relationship with the parent and continue to work to improve the situation for the child?"
I don't think you will need much of a relationship with an abusive parent to improve the situation for the child. It's the child you should be concerned for, not the parents or yourself.
Also, I'm not convinced by your argument that we shouldn't increase the stress level of an abusive parent because that could worsen the situation for the child. Are you implying that child abuse is solely caused by those poor stressed out parents loosing it now and then?
I don't really see your problem here. You report the abusive parent. People trained to spot abuse and deal with the effects of it have a look at the case. No black and white. Just a look at how a child is being treated. I think that's only fair.
I don't advocate running around suspecting each and every parent of abuse, physical, emotional or psychological. But I do think that by making child abuse reporting mandatory people might start to see that it really ISN'T okay to look away just because it's more convenient.
I am one of those kids who had a lot of abuse going on and who would have been REALLY glad if one of the many grown-ups who saw what was going on had gone to the police or youth care instead of being scared to speak up against what seemed to be an upright member of society.
The Medical Council of New Zealand, the Council for Social Workers and the New Zealand Council do not have mandatory child abuse reporting policies, and so in actual fact support crime against children.i worked at the belfast north mediqual doctors in christchurch...a child came with sex abuse...i reported it to my supervisor dr chen-green...she declined to report this...3 months later he came back with 18 fractures.....this was reported to the medical council, the council for social work in christchurch, members of parliament including nicky wagner, dalziel, tim barnett, brendon burns, jim anderton, ruth the minister for social affairs,,,the governor general of NZ, the health minister tony rial...noone wants to take responsibility for this child , even give him compensation....another case was a child at the same clinic who was raped at 16 years of age, once again the doctors running this clinic declined to report this...2 days later ths child tried to commit suicide but was saved by the christchurch general hospital...these are public cases and have been talked about nationally and internationally as to what christchurch people who are against the mandatory reporting of child abuse fail to see that neither the medical council (they declined to investigate these cases), nor the nursing or social work council take responsibility...dr cindy kiro the then children's commissioner declined to look into these cases reported to her...the office of the children's commissioner is so a farce and a waste of teh tax payers money...no member of parliament from ch ch is willing to take responsibility for the children of christchurch.....they can get abused, have 18 fractures ..commit suicide...the medical council thinks it is ok, the health ministers office thinks this is ok....without mandatory reporting, the green paper for children is a farce and in breach of the bill of rights.....look forward to comments on these 2 cases...should we not have mandatory reporting .....
koyal ....International Centre for the ADvocacy for Children
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