Decision Making and the Therapeutic Relationship in the Mandatory Reporting of Child Maltreatment

Background and Purpose

Child maltreatment constitutes a serious public health concern both for the individual child and for society as a whole. Mandatory reporting seeks to break the cycle of maltreatment and ensure the protection of a vulnerable population. As mandatory reporters, social workers are tasked with rendering accurate reporting decisions to avoid under or over reporting as well as maintaining the therapeutic relationship with the family to ensure ongoing psychosocial intervention. This study examines the decision-making patterns of social workers when reporting child maltreatment and the strategies by which they maintain the therapeutic relationship.  

Methods

A mixed-method electronic survey was sent to members (N=2,533) of a social work association who had at least five years of practice experience with children and families. The survey asked participants to read three vignettes of suspected child maltreatment (intimate partner violence, physical maltreatment, emotional maltreatment) and respond to a Likert-scale question (strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree) as to whether they would report the vignette or not to child protective services. “Strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain” were grouped into one category while “agree, strongly agree” were grouped into a second category.

The survey also asked participants the following question: “should I decide to file a report with child protective services regarding this case, I would take the following steps to maintain the therapeutic relationship with the family.” Participants selected from the following options: offer additional sessions, speak to clients via telephone, meet clients in their home, validate clients’ emotions, explain reasons for reporting, or explain reasons behind mandatory reporting.

Results

Participants included 70 men and 410 women; the mean number of years practicing with children and adolescents was 13. A quarter of participants had a BSW (24.2%) and the majority had an MSW (83.8%).

In examining the quantitative findings, the majority of participants (71.8%) would report a child witnessing intimate partner violence; participants were almost evenly split between those who would report (48.8%) or would not report a child being spanked, and roughly a third of participants (65.1%) would report emotional maltreatment.

Qualitative responses demonstrated that the majority of participants would offer psycho-education or counselling services to the family, explain the reason for the report, outline the role of child protective services, discuss client’s feelings about the report, and offer a variety of reporting options such as encouraging the client to report or reporting with the client. Participants would also make efforts to maintain the relationship by offering to support clients during the child protection investigation.

Conclusion

Participants’ decision-making with regards to the physical and emotional maltreatment vignettes was divergent. This research highlights the importance of training and supporting social workers concerning their duty to report as well as encouraging them to reflect on their decision-making processes which may lead to more uniform interpretation of this obligation. Participants utilize a variety of relationship repair strategies with clients and were consistent overall in the actions they would take to repair and maintain the therapeutic relationship.