NCJ Number
192220
Journal
Child Abuse Review Volume: 10 Issue: 5 Dated: 2001 Pages: 301-322
Date Published
2001
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This study examined the effect of South Australia’s mandated notification training related to child abuse and neglect upon the tendency of individuals to report hypothetical cases of child abuse and neglect.
Abstract
The study also examined the factors that influenced the decision to report and whether mandated notification training had an effect on these factors. The study used random assignment and compared a group with no training to a group with recent training and a group with training some time earlier. Forty-one teachers and school personnel who had recently completed training, 31 people who had not completed training, and 73 people who had completed training some years previously responded to 5 hypothetical vignettes. Results revealed no differences between trained and untrained participants in the likelihood of reporting when the quality of evidence of abuse and thus the suspicion of abuse was relatively high. Ambiguous evidence of abuse had a strong negative influence on the likelihood of reporting, although mandatory reporting training reduced this inhibition. The analysis concluded that appropriate training is likely to increase willingness to report and thus better achieve the child protection objective of the law. Tables and 9 references (Author abstract modified)