Understanding roles and improving reporting and response relationships across professional boundaries.

Abstract

Child abuse is underreported. The author, a child protective service professional with extensive field and management experience, provides his perspective on some of the barriers that inhibit an effective response to reporting and collaboration between the professionals evaluating and investigating possible child abuse. Then presented are his ideas for improving the collaboration, including recommendations for changes in training, child protective service procedures, child protective service staffing, confidentiality requirements, and the adoption of a Child Advocacy Center (CAC) model.