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Introduction
School personnel, particularly educators and school psychologists, are a first line of defense in protecting children from abuse. Teachers play an important role in the detection and reporting of child abuse. The relationship established between teachers and their students can facilitate the identification of child abuse. By virtue of their work, they have ongoing contact with children, thus placing them in a unique position to detect signs of child abuse. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recognizes that the most frequent reporters of child abuse, numbering 16.2% in 2003, were educators (Crosson-Tower, 2003).
In addition, teachers are in a position to observe children on a daily basis and compare behavior with peer norms and/or past behavior (Crenshaw, Crenshaw, & Lichtenberg, 1995). While school professionals are in a unique position to identify and report child abuse, much of the current literature indicates that school personnel, particularly educators, seriously underreport suspected cases of child maltreatment (National Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research, 1998). Research on over and underreporting by teachers is particularly important for the debate since the Third National Incidence Study (Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996) reveals that public schools report more cases of child abuse and neglect than does any other institution. Zellman and Fair (2002) note that schools' low reporting rates to Child Protective Services (CPS) may reflect their tendency to report milder cases of maltreatment. These cases are screened out by increasingly strict standards imposed by CPS, caused by CPS's lack of resources to respond to the increased reporting of child abuse and neglect. This highlights the important role of educators and indicates that many educators are already involved in responding to this issue, yet more can be done to address maltreatment. Perhaps training and education of child abuse needs to occur for prospective teachers in their coursework on the undergraduate level.
Possible Reasons for Not Reporting Child Abuse
There are a variety of reasons why school personnel may not feel comfortable when it comes to making the decision to report a possible child abuse case. These reasons include legal ramification for false allegations, consequences of disclosure, lack of knowledge regarding how to detect and report child abuse, and possible deterioration of relationship between the school and the family. For...