The most asked question while delivering Child Protection Training

For PCA’s first article of 2020, I wanted to take a slightly different approach, and write a piece from my own experience delivering Child Protection and Child Safeguarding training throughout the twenty-tens. I wanted to write something useful and meaningful for people. I thought to myself, “Why not just answer the question you get asked at every training session.” I’m will keep answering this question during training sessions because it is an incredibly valid and concerning question. The question is about making a report to the statutory child protection agency. This is the question…

“What if I’m wrong? What if I make a report about child abuse and the information I provide is wrong?”

It’s a scary thought, and if you’ve had this thought, you’re not alone. Without exaggeration, I am asked a variation of this question in every single training session I deliver. If you let your mind wander with that worry, it only takes a moment before you start to imagine some very serious consequences. We won’t go into that here, because it is not the point of this article to cause fear.

The first point to make about this is a simple one: you won’t be punished for making a mistake. The child protection legislation in your state/territory will have statements about ‘acting honestly and reasonably’ and ‘in good faith’ and providing information which you, ‘believe to be true’ or ‘believe to be correct.’ It is a crime to knowingly make false or malicious reports, but it is not a crime to believe you are doing the right thing, to act in good faith and to later become aware that you had made a mistake.

The second point to make about this is also very simple: the child protection agency won’t remove a child from their family home because of what you said in a report. Information reported to child protection agencies is regarded as “suspicions” or “allegations” and no assessment is made about their validity when they’re received – the assessment is about their serious and the risk of harm to the child. This means that when you make a report, no matter what you say, all you are doing is providing the child protection agency with an opportunity to determine if they need to speak with that family or not. Anything that happens after that is a result of what they found when they had contact with that family.

To be clear – any decision made by the child protection agency about needing to remove a child from the family home is based entirely on what those officers found as part of their investigation. The reason they decided to remove might have nothing to do with the information you provided and be about something else they uncovered in their investigation. It could be that everything you said was 100 per cent true and their assessment was that the only way to ensure the child’s safety was to remove the child. Whatever the situation, it must be very serious for them to remove the child and they will eventually need to justify their actions and decisions in court.

The final point I want to make on this question is the most important and basically makes the other two meaningless and this is how I answer the question when I am asked during training…

“Let’s flip the question for a moment: What if you’re right? What if you’re right and you let your doubt stop you from making a child protection report?”

The consequences of this scenario can be incredibly serious. Again, we won’t go into the consequences here, but there are very serious consequences for everyone involved: for the child, for yourself and potentially for your employer.

To finish, let’s consider what happens if your child protection agency investigates concerns about a family and those concerns are completely false. It is the role of child protection agencies in every state and territory of Australia to ensure that children are not at unacceptable risk of experiencing abuse or neglect and have a parent that is able and willing to protect them from harm. It is not their role to remove children based on rumours whispered down the phone line. They will conduct an investigation. Because of that investigation, they will NOT substantiate abuse or neglect and they will conclude that the child is NOT in need of protection. I don’t pretend this will be a fun experience for the family. It will likely be embarrassing, scary, intrusive and confusing for the parents – but it will not cause a Government agency to tear a family apart. Instead, the child protection agency will have determined that the child is safe. The officers will apologise for the intrusion, thank the family for their time and they will leave the family alone.

I hope that this information has removed some fear and concerns about making a child protection report and gives people the confidence to pick up the phone when they have a reportable suspicion. I look forward to the opportunity to answer this question again at the next Child Protection training session I deliver.