What I Wish I Knew: A New Clinician’s Guide to Mandated Reporting

Date of Award

Summer 8-23-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Research Paper

Degree Name

Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology

Organizational Unit

Graduate School of Professional Psychology

First Advisor

Lou Felipe

Second Advisor

John Holmberg

Third Advisor

Alea Holman

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

Mandated reporting, Child abuse and neglect, Child maltreatment, Therapeutic reporting, Training

Abstract

This is a user-friendly training guide for clinicians, both new and seasoned, who are nervous, conflicted, and/or unsure of their legal obligation to report suspected child abuse and/or neglect. Oftentimes the decision to make a mandated report can be extremely difficult and stressful for therapists. It can result in serious consequences, both within the therapeutic relationship and within the family of the child and/or children that are the subject of a report. Complicating matters further, a review of mandated reporting research shows that the training therapists receive surrounding their legal obligation to report child maltreatment is highly variable, limited, and/or at times non-existent (Baker et al., 2021; Goulet et al., 2022; Kenny, 2015;). Additionally, these trainings mostly focus on teaching therapists the laws defining maltreatment and the mechanics of making a report as opposed to the impacts of reporting on the therapeutic process or strategies to mitigate negative outcomes. Therefore, this paper and accompanying training provides therapists with the fundamental knowledge to better prepare them to respond to instances of child maltreatment within their therapeutic practice. It specifically focuses on key areas that contextualize child maltreatment, including the history of mandated reporting, the ways we define and measure child maltreatment, and the therapeutic techniques shown to be effective when making a mandated report. To accomplish this, a review of the psychological literature and research on mandated reporting has been done. In addition, abolitionist scholarship and perspectives were referenced, which are missing from most state sponsored trainings, to highlight the past and present harms that the child welfare system has enacted on families. This training’s content is by no means exhaustive, but rather, summarizes key information that a student in their first few years of graduate school and clinical practice may find helpful when faced with the difficult decision to report child maltreatment.

Copyright Date

6-9-2025

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. Permanently suppressed.

Rights Holder

Steph Salazar

Provenance

Received from author

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

65 pgs

File Size

1.6 MB

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