Closing the Front Door of

Child Protection:
Rethinking Mandated Reporting

Miriam Itzkowitz Through an interdisciplinary

Institute to Transform Child Protection
and trauma-responsive lens,
Mitchell Hamline School of Law
this article reviews the legal
Katie Olson and social history of man-
Institute to Transform Child Protection
dated reporting laws and fam-
Mitchell Hamline School of Law
ily separation, examines the
ethical conundrum of mandated reporting as it relates to evidence-
based practice, and discusses alternatives to mandated reporting as a
primary prevention strategy. Using existing and emerging data, the
authors argue that mandated reporting as a universal strategy con-
tributes to racial disproportionality in the child welfare system and
that anti-racist practices should begin with an examination of our
reliance on mandated reporting.

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M andated reporting laws were created to prevent child abuse and

neglect across the country. However, the most recent National
Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4), which includes
data on mandated reporting, conducted in 2010 (NIS-4, 2010), as well
as a meta-analysis of qualitative studies regarding mandated reporting
completed in 2017, shows no connection between maltreatment pre-
vention and mandated reporting. In fact, to date, there has not been
any published research suggestive of such causation. Despite there
being no evidence to link mandated reporting to maltreatment preven-
tion, the United States has seen a significant increase in maltreatment
reports over the last several years (ACF, 2020). Although trends in
child welfare have started moving toward preventative practice in the-
ory, practically speaking, children are still being reported and removed
from their primary caregivers at an alarming and increasing rate (ACF,
2020). This is especially true for families and communities of color.
The Institute to Transform Child Protection (ITCP), a program
of the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, works toward a more effec-
tive nationwide child protection system to preserve families and pre-
vent trauma through innovative policy and forward-thinking education
and training. The initial activity of the Institute, and still at the foun-
dation of our work, is the Child Protection Clinic, which provides
holistic legal representation to parents who are involved in the child
welfare system. We see firsthand the trauma that our systems enact
on families and communities. We witness in stark relief the dispro-
portionality of families of color, particularly Black families, cited in
statistics. The work we do with families informs our policy and training
agendas. Tracking a marked increase in the number of reports com-
ing into CPS screening, we recognized a need for a new way to talk
to mandated reporters about the ways in which they make decisions
about reporting. Beginning in 2018, we developed trauma-informed
and anti-racist mandated reporting training for professionals in edu-
cational and health care settings—from which 85% of reports ema-
nate in Minnesota (Minnesota Department of Human Services, 2020).

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This article mirrors the training we have now given to more than 1,000
mandated reporters in Minnesota and will give a brief history of man-
dated reporting laws, delineate the problems we see with the current
culture of mandated reporting, and propose alternative strategies. In
this paper, the use of the term White supremacist refers to “both an ide-
ology and an historic political system … Historic legal racial exclusion
and exploitation created the contemporary system of racially inequita-
ble social and political relations” (Nakagawa, 2021).

A Brief History of Mandated Reporting

The most recent reporting data indicates that reporters made approx-
imately 4.3 million referrals to child welfare agencies in the United
States in 2018 (ACF, 2020), the cumulation of a steady increase since
2014. Regardless of an increasing or decreasing trend, we note there
is consistency that permeates the child welfare system throughout its
history, including the large number of reports related to poverty issues,
the overrepresentation of children of color in those reports, and the
impact of high-profile cases on legislative reforms.
The first high-profile case of child maltreatment in the United
States dates to the 1870s, when a young girl was severally abused by
her adoptive parents (Myers, 2008; Gordon, 2011). The “Mary Ellen
Case” is heralded as groundbreaking for putting child protection on
the map, as there were no child maltreatment laws in place at that
time. Indeed, the case was won using laws against animal cruelty,
which highlights the lack of children’s rights during that time period
(Myers, 2008; Gordon, 2011). The media fueled public outrage over
the treatment of Mary Ellen and similarly situated children, and the
case sparked extensive social and legislative reform over the next sev-
eral decades in the area of child safety. This included the formation
of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children,
considered to be the first child protection agency (Myers, 2008;
Gordon, 2011).

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In examining the historical context of child welfare, it would be

careless to dismiss the similarities between Mary Ellen’s case and an
overarching theme in past and present child welfare systems: the rela-
tionship between poverty and “neglect.” Little focus is placed on why
Mary Ellen was adopted, this topic often being merely an introduction
to her story. Her father was killed in the Civil War, leaving her mother,
Frances, caring for an infant with little support. Frances boarded Mary
Ellen while she worked, but eventually lost her job and was unable to
afford care for Mary Ellen. As such, Frances sent Mary Ellen to an
orphanage, where she was adopted (Gordon, 2011).
The story of Mary Ellen’s biological family is all too familiar.
Instead of providing needed support to Frances to keep Mary Ellen
safe in her care, society offered solutions that would separate the fam-
ily. Twenty years prior, the “orphan trains” began, moving children of
poor parents across the country to families who could afford to care
for them—and for whom they could provide cheap labor. Orphanages
had existed since the turn of the 19th century and boasted the refor-
mation of child behavior and the creation of good citizens. The prede-
cessor of orphanages was typically indentured servitude with wealthier
families—families of “good” character (Gordon, 2011). Underlying
each solution was the notion that poverty reflects a moral failing of the
parent, and that children would be better off with an adult of higher
moral character (Myers, 2008). This concept of one group (typically
White, heterosexual, married couples in the middle class) being more
capable of parenting than another extends to the ongoing removal of
children of color from their families. The United States has a long his-
tory of removing children of color from their parents: as a means of
punishment and deterrent in the case of recent family separations at
our southern border, profit in the case of slavery, because we believe we
can do it “better,” in the case of orphanages, or to perpetuate our White
supremacist framework, as in the case of Indian boarding schools.
Even early government financial programs, such as “mothers’ pensions”
between 1911-1933 and the first rendition of the Social Security Act

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of 1935, offered to help mothers living in poverty, were not available to

Black mothers (Gordon, 2011). This exclusion of Black mothers from
the only governmental resource designed to keep families together
foreshadowed the racial inequities we see today. While there may cer-
tainly be times that removal of a child from their parent is necessary to
ensure their immediate safety, we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that
family separation exists in a context of historical and racial trauma in
this country.
Historically, the responsibility to find a place for children who had
been removed from their homes, whether through congregate care or
family settings, fell to charitable, faith-based, and private organizations.
Although some form of public financial assistance existed, as noted,
it was minimal, not available to all families, and carried with it the
stigma of welfare and poverty (Myers, 2008). It was not until the 1960s
that the initiative to protect children moved more fully to the public
sphere. That shift, largely a reaction to a medical research study—the
“Battered-Child Syndrome Study”—kindled recognition throughout
the country that child maltreatment crossed the boundaries of class and
social status (Kempe et al., 1962). Once again, the media published
details of gruesome physical abuse cases, sparking public outrage and a
call to reform by private organizations. In response, the first mandatory
reporting laws were passed in all states by 1967 (Myers, 2008).
Perhaps feeling behind the times, the federal government passed
the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) in 1974
and reauthorized the law in 2010. Initially proposed as a law that
would create a consistent standard for mandated reporting, it simply
required that states have certain mandated reporting laws in order to
receive federal funds (CAPTA, 1974, 2010). Some of these require-
ments include clearly defining child maltreatment and requiring train-
ing for mandated reporters. State statutes have evolved over time,
listing specific professionals considered to be mandated reporters who
are required to make a report if they have a “reasonable belief” (or some
language akin to this) that maltreatment occurred (Brown & Gallagher,

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2014). Some states go as far as to say that everyone is responsible for

reporting, while most name those professionals who interact directly
with children, such as educators, health care providers, social work-
ers, and law enforcement (Brown & Gallagher, 2014; Myers, 2008).
Since 1990, coaches and clergy have been added to the list in many
states in reaction to high-profile cases like the Roman Catholic clergy
abuses, the Penn State scandal, and sexual abuse perpetrated in the
Boy Scouts of America and the U.S. Gymnastics Programs (Brown &
Gallagher, 2014).
Repeatedly, highly publicized cases of physical and sexual abuse
have spotlighted child maltreatment and led to public awareness and
legislative reform of child welfare practices, including mandatory
reporting. Yet these reforms have not successfully led to maltreatment
prevention as intended and fail to address many of the societal issues
at play in our child welfare system—specifically racism, poverty, risk
tolerance, and adequate training for professionals.

Factors Perpetuating Systemic Racism in

Mandated Reporting and Child Welfare
Statutory Omissions of Poverty and
Cultural Considerations
Statutory omissions of poverty and cultural considerations have fueled
explicit and implicit racism in the United States child protection
system by creating a system that seeks to regulate families of color.
Children of color, who live in poverty at disproportionate rates, also are
overrepresented in the child welfare system (ACF, 2020), whereas the
notable cases that have reformed our child welfare practices, including
mandated reporting, involve maltreatment perpetrated by organiza-
tions and individuals that are predominately White against children
that are predominately White. Further, in looking at these cases, we
see common themes of physical and sexual abuse. And some reforms
are justified. One would be hard-pressed to argue that a maltreatment

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report was an inappropriate response, or that public outrage and gov-

ernment intervention was not warranted, when severe physical and
sexual abuse is present. However, the statutory changes that have
resulted from high-profile cases miss the mark for most children who
are the subjects of the reports welfare agencies see daily. The data from
FFY2018 notes that of all children receiving an agency response, 60%
experienced neglect and no other forms of maltreatment, such as the
types present in those notable cases (ACF, 2020).
Most reports (and subsequent removals) allege some form of
neglect, which is correlated with income inequality and poverty
(Eckenrode et al., 2014). Reported children of color come from poorer
communities than their White counterparts, and community poverty
factors, even when controlling for neglect subtypes, show different
investigative decisions based on race (Jonson-Reid, Drake & Zhou,
2013). However, statutes that require mandated reporters to alert
agencies of suspected maltreatment have failed to distinguish between
neglect and poverty or iterate the relationship between the two (Child
Welfare Information Gateway, 2019). Additionally, most statutes pro-
hibit professionals from considering cultural differences when deciding
whether to report (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2019). These
statutory omissions force reporters to rely on their own biased beliefs
and practices, and a White, middle-class definition of normative par-
enting, ultimately resulting in the unnecessary involvement and over-
representation of families of color in the child welfare system.

Statutory Ambiguity
The law omits guidance as to what maltreatment looks like prac-
tically speaking, or when a particular situation may meet the defi-
nition of maltreatment. This is especially true for definitions of
mental injury, emotional harm, and neglect where an overt injury
is not observable. The legal threshold for making a mandated
report, as stated earlier, uses the somewhat inexact language of

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“reasonable belief” (CAPTA, 2010; Child Welfare Information

Gateway, 2019). As in several other areas of law, the term “reason-
able” is not defined, and can have both objective and subjective
meaning. Mandated reporters without legal training or knowledge of
legal precedent are left to decide what might be reasonable in any given
situation. We would argue that too often, reporters use a “first suspi-
cion” or “first discomfort” threshold instead of the required “reason-
able belief” standard. Once this “first suspicion” is reached, the reporter
considers any further engagement with the family before reporting to
be “investigation” rather than, we would assert, information-gathering
necessary to bring their concerns to the level of “reasonable belief”
that a child is being maltreated. Without clear guidance in the law on
the meanings of maltreatment and the term “reasonable,” reports are
made due to fear of consequences for not reporting (which are clearly
stated in statutes), or simply not knowing what else to do. This inun-
dates agencies with reports that are screened out as not meeting the
definition of maltreatment, rely on uninformed or value-laden under-
standings of safety and harm, and/or could better be addressed by
the community.

Inadequate Training for Mandated Reporters

Federal law requires training for mandated reporters, and many
states reiterate this requirement in their statues (CAPTA, 2010;
Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2019). However, few statutes
describe in detail what this training should include, meaning man-
dated reporters even in the same jurisdiction are often trained incon-
sistently (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2019). In practice,
training for mandated reporters is limited in scope, focusing on topics
such as legal definitions of maltreatment, how to make a report, and
who to report to. While this is necessary information, training fails to
address equally important issues related to poverty, culture, and insti-
tutional racism, and there is no requirement that training provide an

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opportunity to ask questions or engage in discussions about the con-

tent. Many offerings are online webinars or brief mentions lumped
into larger presentations on organizational policy. This, again, leads
to the reliance on societal views of “normative parenting” which fall in
line with White practices and biases. Anecdotally, we have knowledge
of several professionals, from different agencies and practice settings,
whose “training” consisted of displaying the phone number of the
county child maltreatment reporting line and the statement “when in
doubt, report.”
Mandated reporters are specifically cautioned not to investigate
any concerns they have about possible child maltreatment. This inves-
tigation, they are cautioned, needs to be left to child welfare inves-
tigators or law enforcement. In cases of sexual abuse or imminent
physical harm, this is sound advice. However, this advice paints with
such a broad brush as to be harmful to the as many as 80% of reports
that do not relate to possible sexual abuse or imminent physical harm
(HHS, 2020).
Additionally, much of the training for mandated reporters largely
centers on the legal ramifications of not reporting as well as discussions
of risk and safety, which presuppose that making a report is the safest
avenue for support. The refrain, “when in doubt, report” has become a
central theme in most education. Like the law, training typically omits
themes of trauma, increased risk experienced by families in the child
welfare system, cultural parenting norms, or alternative responses avail-
able for families experiencing the effects of poverty. Training focuses
on reporting as the only response, as opposed to being one possible
response in qualifying circumstances. When we add implicit bias to
this ineffectual training, the increased level of “eyes on” or surveillance
of families of color, particularly Black and Native families, we begin to
understand why over half of Black families have been the subject of a
maltreatment report and similarly are more likely to be removed from
their home—even when allegations of reports involving their White
peers are the same or similar (Kim et al., 2017).

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Flawed Understanding of Safety/Risk Equation

The belief that “making a report will not hurt anybody, but not making
one might,” even without certain reasonable belief of maltreatment,
ignores the harm that children and families can and do experience
when involved in the child welfare system. There is substantial research
indicating that child removal is traumatic for any child, often leading
to difficulties in normative cognitive, physical, emotional, and social
development (Baldwin, 2019; Conn, 2015; Cote, 2018; Doyle, 2007;
Lawrence, 2006; Maclean, 2016, Yoon, 2018). Recent data indicate
that there is little to no benefit over remaining at home after alleged
maltreatment, in terms of cognitive or language outcomes, academic
achievement, mental or behavioral health, and suicide risk. There is
an increased risk after removal of juvenile and adult criminal behav-
ior, trauma disorders, and early mortality (Sugrue 2019). In addition
to the impact on children, the traumatic cost to parents and commu-
nities of losing their children further exacerbates historical and gen-
erational trauma in a country where family separation has long had
racial implications.
Before the science of neurodevelopment and attachment caught up
to us, we had one metric of harm. The safety/risk equation was cen-
tered on leaving a child in an unsafe home or removing them to safety.
We now know that removing someone from their attachment figure,
even when that attachment figure is less than ideal, is a major trau-
matic event. Therefore, our safety/risk equation needs to be balanced
differently—the possible risk of leaving children in the home and the
known risk of removal.
In addition, we must ask whose risk we are contemplating when
reporting decisions are being made. Is it the risk to ourselves and our
institutions of not reporting—either through fears of liability or failure
to protect—or the risk to children and families of either making or
failing to make a report?
We can observe the low-risk tolerance that White supremacist
institutions have when it comes to families of color in recent article

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in the Los Angeles Times, headlined “‘We do not want another Gabriel
Fernandez’: Coronavirus leads to an ‘alarming’ drop in child abuse
reports.” It reads:

On a typical day, up to 1000 calls and reports of suspected

child abuse and neglect flood into the Los Angeles County
Sheriff’s Department and Department of Children and
Family Services. Eagle-eyed teachers, doctors, dentists,
counselors, coaches—and army of mandated reporters across
California—along with security guards, janitors and obser-
vant parents typically fill the hotline with reports of suspected
child abuse or neglect. Those calls, investigators say, often
save lives. But since the outbreak of the coronavirus has shut-
tered schools, curtailed medical visits and largely hidden the
lives of children behind closed doors, the reports of suspected
abuse have dropped by as much as 50%. (Winton, 2020)

The headline, referring to the Netflix documentary The Trials of Gabriel

Fernandez, which documents the tragic murder of Gabriel Fernandez
and subsequent trial of his guardians and social workers—is a stark
reminder of the power of a high-profile case (Knappenberger, 2020).
Meanwhile, White middle-class and wealthy families are accorded the
privacy of living “behind closed doors” on a regular basis (Lyon, 2003;
Bridges, 2017; Fong 2020). What has changed during coronavirus-
related lockdowns is the fact that these “eagle-eyed” professionals no
longer have eyes on children of color and those living in poverty. The data
about whether child maltreatment has increased during COVID-19 are
not yet available. And the notion that what keeps children—primarily
children of color and those in poverty—safe is the eagle eyes of primar-
ily White, middle-class professionals is a particularly paternalistic and
White supremacist view of family and community.
As our society grapples with the ongoing impacts of systems that
have roots in White supremacy, such as policing and criminal justice,
we also must examine the ways in which our child welfare system itself

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polices communities and families of color. Dorothy Roberts, author

of the seminal book Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, argues
that recent proposals made to reallocate funding for police to health
and human services agencies “ignore how the misnamed ‘child wel-
fare’ system, like the misnamed ‘criminal justice’ system, is designed
to regulate and punish black and other marginalized people. It could
be more accurately referred to as the ‘family regulation system.’” Even
more recently, Roberts and others are using the term “family policing
system” (Roberts, 2020).
In addition to the social and cultural cost child welfare has on com-
munities of color, there is also a financial cost to using child welfare
involvement as a first response. Research estimates that the United
States spends $80 billion dollars per year on the child welfare system in
relation to screening, foster care, mental health, adoptions, and court
costs (Ringel, 2017).

Call for Action

As previously discussed, there is no research to date that suggests a
causal link between mandated reporting and maltreatment prevention.
What research has shown are connections and correlations between
trauma-responsive practices, such as family engagement and sup-
port, service provision, and public health strategies, and the preven-
tion of child abuse and neglect (Ringel, 2017). As such, we assert that
there should be a shift in this country’s reliance on mandated report-
ing as a first response for supporting families to other evidence-based
approaches. Through legislation and training, reporters must be given
confidence in their own abilities to provide or connect families with
prevention-based services and the freedom to do so without involving
child protection professionals through a report that may or may not be
required. We pose the changes below as potential starting points.

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Proposed Statutory Changes

It is important for laws to differentiate between poverty as a cause of
neglect and poverty as neglect. Several states explicitly distinguish the
two in statute and several others have legal precedence in case law indi-
cating that poverty alone is insufficient to terminate parental rights
(Dale, 2014). Yet neither these nor federal laws explicitly address man-
dated reporting when legislating these issues.
Federal law should create model legislation that requires states to
have maltreatment laws that include: (a) an explicit statement that pov-
erty is not neglect; (b) clear guidelines for mandated reporters deter-
mining the difference between poverty and neglect; and (c) a statement
that reporters are not required to report situations where poverty issues
exist, but no other maltreatment factors are present. Additionally, leg-
islation should clarify the term “reasonable belief/suspicion” in a way
that allows reporters to engage in preliminary investigatory practices in
order to determine if a report would be a reasonable and/or necessary
response. As part of this, statutes should clearly permit reporters to
consider parenting styles, culture, relationships with families, economic
circumstances, and alternative, maltreatment-preventative responses
before making a report. These proposed changes would be aligned with
many of the themes of the Family First Prevention Services Act of
2018, which seeks to shift focus from reactionary to preventative ser-
vices and to decrease separation of families and the racial disparities
present in our child welfare system (Family First Prevention Services
Act, 2018).
Finally, instead of simply requiring mandated reporting training,
laws should state that all mandated reporters be trained in at least: the
definitions of maltreatment and reasonable belief, how to differenti-
ate between poverty and neglect, alternative responses, research-based
preventative measures, cultural parenting norms, racial disparities,
trauma associated with maltreatment and removal, and recognizing all
forms of maltreatment and when it is necessary to report. Coupled with
suggestions for training stated subsequently, these proposed statutory

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changes can relieve mandated reporters’ confusion and anxiety sur-

rounding when a report is necessary, and when alternate responses
are appropriate.

Training and Culture Shift

Regardless of legislative reform, the focus of mandated reporter train-
ing needs to shift from a simple knowledge exchange of “Wh-” ques-
tions (who to report to, when to report, what to report, how to make
a report), to a discussion of reporting as one, sometimes necessary,
response in a host of other possible responses. In addition to the logis-
tics of reporting, training must provide a framework to understand
ambiguous legal terms and address reporters’ ethical responsibilities
relating to a complex and White supremacist child welfare system.
Consistent training is needed on ways to offer substantive engage-
ment as well as develop the discernment necessary to recognize sys-
temic issues of poverty and implicit bias. Training should not just
be the act of presenting, or receiving, information. Rather, it should
spark conversations that provide opportunities for self-reflection and
critical thinking.
We do not want to minimize the fact that there is real frustra-
tion and existential pain among those in mandated reporting roles. The
lack of control over systemic forces and societal barriers plague well-
meaning professionals. Reporters often reach out to child welfare
agencies with the assumption that CPS can respond to the very real
family adversity they witness, or that they will have tools to repair what
they see as inappropriate or ill-informed parenting. There is a belief,
particularly among White professionals who have historically benefit-
ted from systems, that there must be a systemic response that can “fix”
these problems. Recent research speaks to this bind:

Most reports to Child Protective Services (CPS) originate

from educational, medical, law enforcement, and social ser-
vices personnel (HHS 2020). These “reporting professionals,”

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I find, do not primarily channel families to CPS to address

imminent child safety concerns or to fulfill legal mandates.
Instead, aspiring to help families facing adversity but unable
to intervene as they would like, reporting professionals sum-
mon CPS to address families’ multifaceted needs. In partic-
ular, they are drawn to CPS’s coupling of care and coercion,
as the agency’s goal of supporting families stands alongside
its power to separate them. The dual capacities of surveil-
lance—as a means of identifying needs for support as well
as controlling marginalized populations—frame CPS as a
sort of all-purpose agency and a promising option to respond
to family adversity, such that reporting professionals bring
cases to CPS’s doorstep that frontline investigators do not
believe require a child protection-specific response. This pro-
cess extends CPS surveillance to families seen as unlikely
candidates for sustained intervention and exposes families
unequally to the state. Yet even as allegations in most cases
are unsubstantiated (HHS 2020), and typically, neither
reporters nor investigators expect children to be removed, the
possibility of family separation engenders acute fears among
mothers, and the active involvement of reporting systems
strains relationships between families and the service provid-
ers reporting them. (Fong, 2020 p. 611)

Trauma-responsive Approach
Trauma, on its most basic level, occurs when an event happens to an
individual or group, over which they had no control, with little power to
change their circumstance, and which overwhelms their ability to cope.
Core principles of trauma-informed care seek to ameliorate these con-
ditions by intentionally ensuring that people have access to the things
they didn’t when the trauma occurred. Generations of family separa-
tion and the ongoing fear of governmental intrusion into parenting

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certainly qualifies as trauma for communities most impacted by child

welfare. Based on the SAMSHA’s principles of trauma-informed care,
trauma-responsive strategies for engaging families would focus on col-
laboration and mutuality, cultural attunement, sharing of power, and
giving voice and choice rather than on investigative, punitive, or coer-
cive authority approaches (SAMHSA, 2014).
Below are the alternative responses we encourage. These are
to be used before and then either in place of, or in addition to, an
eventual report.

Examine your relationship with this child and family.

Social work and counseling theory posit that the strength of the rela-
tionships we establish with others is the single most influential fac-
tor in the success of our work (Miller, 2013). Yet current mandated
reporting culture requires that we pass the concerns we have about
families and children from those with whom they may have the stron-
gest relationship—their educators, coaches, health care providers, and
clergy—to those with whom they have none, namely child welfare pro-
fessionals and courts. We must seek alternative responses that allow
families to remain in connection with those with whom they have a
supportive relationship or to be passed to others where there is a trust-
ing relationship. In order to rely on a relationship at the time of con-
cern you must, of course, have established a relationship at the outset
of your engagement with children and families. Thought of in this way,
establishing trusting relationships is a method of primary prevention.

Reflect on your own values, norms, and biases.

There is more than one “safe” way to parent. Our cultural norms tend
to frame the parenting of White, middle-class parents as the most
appropriate and safe, even when they don’t differ in practice from those
we label as neglectful in other communities. Perhaps nowhere is this
more evident than in the free-range parenting movement. Free-range

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parenting is defined by its founders as the “concept of raising children in

the spirit of encouraging them to function independently and with lim-
ited parental supervision, in accordance with their age of development
and with a reasonable acceptance of realistic personal risks” (Skenazy,
2009, p. 190).
Allowing children to play unattended in a park, or walk to school
without an adult are, statistically speaking, safe parenting choices.
Yet we frame these differently depending on the parent. Take, for
instance, the distinction between how Lenore Skenazy, founder of the
free-range parenting philosophy, was treated after allowing her then
nine-year-old son to take the subway on his own in New York City.
While she faced her share of critique, she ended up with a popular
newspaper column and a reality television series in which she provided
parenting coaching. And, most importantly, she never had her child
removed from her care. Compare this with the outcome of South
Carolina mother Debra Harrell, who in 2014 allowed her nine-year-
old daughter to play at a nearby park—after having been given a cell
phone—while Ms. Harrell worked her shift at a nearby McDonald’s.
Ms. Harrell, who is Black, was arrested for child abandonment and spent
the night in jail. Her daughter spent 17 days in the foster care system
(Calarco, 2018).
For Skenazy, and other free-range parents, this is a parenting phi-
losophy. For others it’s a necessity. But does the risk change because of
the intent? Indeed, research has found not that actual risk changes but
that perceptions of risk do. And that these perceptions of risk are cor-
related with race and ethnicity (Raz, 2020). These biases impact which
families initially are reported by mandated reporters and are the first
introduction of disproportionality in the child welfare process.

Think explicitly about race and culture. Ask yourself if this is

truly about safety.
It may seem like an oversimplification, but we urge reporters to explic-
itly ask themselves, “would I be making a report if this family looked
like mine?”
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In her illuminating article, Mical Raz argues that “... public atten-
tion has turned to the way which public reports to the police function
as a form of control over spaces that Black people inhabit...Unnecessary
or potentially avoidable reports to CPS should similarly be seen as a
way of invoking agents of the state to control individual behavior. This
category would consider reports that do not identify children at the
risk of imminent harm, but rather focus on family behaviors that could
better be addressed in an alternative manner.” (Raz, 2020 pp.2-3).

Employ a decision-making model. Consult with at least one

other person whose primary focus is not liability.
Ethical decision-making is a process rather than a destination.
Mandated reporters should regularly employ the use of a decision-
making model. This is not investigation. Rather, it is a way to get to
the threshold of reasonable belief. There are several ethical decision-
making models available for use. However, the model itself matters
less than the fact that one is using a process which encourages critical
thinking and reflective practice.
Consultation is a necessary part of ethical decision-making. We
encourage reporters to consult with at least one person whose response
will not be based solely on the “when in doubt, report” mindset.

Be curious about what you’re observing. Have a

challenging conversation.
We encourage curiosity as a framework, rather than judgment or anxi-
ety. There are times when mandated reporters, because they have gen-
uine concern for the children they know, mistake their own feelings
of discomfort for risk or lack of safety. This can lead to reports being
made as a way of quieting this discomfort. Examine these biases and
implicit beliefs. Have a challenging conversation—with yourself, with
a colleague, and, when safe (remember that uncomfortable does not

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mean unsafe) with the families about which you have concerns. Having
these conversations is not investigation; it is one of the steps needed in
order to reach a “reasonable belief” threshold rather than a “feeling of
anxiety” threshold.

Offer support and/or supportive services.

There is no doubt that families and children need support. However,
a greater distinction needs to be made between responding and report-
ing. If mandated reporters observe needs or see gaps in resources of
the families they serve, we argue that there are more effective ways of
bridging those gaps than child welfare involvement that do not bring
with them the same potential for harm.

Conclusion
Our reliance on mandated reporting as the primary response to help all
families introduces more opportunity for systemic racism and implicit
bias rather than serving its intended function of preventing child mal-
treatment. By rethinking how we engage mandated reporters we can
close, at least partially, the front door to family separation and harmful
outcomes experienced by families involved in the child welfare system.

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