Reporting child abuse
Dear Mrs Macaulay,
I am a guidance counsellor and I saw in a book on the Child Care and Protection Act that it is mandatory for us (I know that guidance counsellors are prescribed persons) to report to the Children’s Registry if when we are doing our work, we get information which give us good reason to suspect that a child is being or was being abandoned or neglected or physically or sexually abused or is for some other reasons in need of care and protection.
Could you please explain this for me because I am not sure what it means exactly. Is it that I must only make a report when I have like proof of something before I can make the report? Because it says if we have good reason to suspect them we should report. I want to understand so that I do not act in a wrong way.
I am not sure if what you stated is a quotation from this book you mentioned or whether you have paraphrased what you read.
I am going to quote the provision in full as it is a very important provision, pursuant to which if you are found guilty of the offence of failing to make a report, it can cost a prescribed person a lot – if they are lucky only a fine which can be up to $1/2 million – or ruin your life completely as you can also be sent to prison and of course, you would be thrown out of your profession as well.
So here goes:- Section 6(3) of the Act reads as follows;-
“A prescribed person who, in the discharge of that person’s duties, acquires information that ought reasonably to cause that person to suspect that a child-
(a) has been, is being or is likely to be, abandoned, neglected or, physically or sexually ill-treated; or
(b) is otherwise in need of care and protection, shall make a report to the Registry in accordance with the provision of this section.”
The provision which relates to all other persons and to you in relation to circumstances outside the ambit of your job, that is, in your personal capacity, is in Section 6 (2) and provides follows:-
“Any person who has information which causes that person to suspect that a child-
(a) has been, is being or is likely to be, abandoned, neglected or, physically or sexually ill-treated; or
(b) is otherwise in need of care and protection, shall make in report to the Registry.”
You can see at once from the words highlighted that the level of responsibility to report is not the same. The threshold for a prescribed person is lower – if I can put it that way. You see, prescribed persons in the course of performing their duties use their specialised knowledge, training and experience to assess and deal with whatever problem is presented to them. They therefore can be made culpable when they acquire information which ought to have lit a red light in their conscious minds of something being wrong vis-a-vis a child in their care and what in all probability is wrong or is causing harm to that child.
An ordinary person’s duty to report arises when they have information which makes them suspicious. For example, hearing a child crying out and sounds of blows from a room. A trained person may notice a child flinch whenever a person moves towards the child, or see particular kinds of bruises or wounds, which because of their training makes them question that they were caused from mere falling while the child was playing.
So, your duty to report arises, if in the course of performing your duties for or with a child, you find out or notice something, which because you are a trained and working guidance counsellor, should make you suspect that the child has been, is being or is likely to be abandoned, neglected or, physically or sexually ill-treated; or is otherwise in need of care and protection.
You do not have to have, at least, I would not interpret “ought reasonably to cause” to mean “have good reason to suspect” – but that from the information you acquire, it is reasonable to expect of guidance counsellors, that it would cause their hackles to rise, red lights to go on so you suspect the child has suffered or is suffering or may in the future suffer abuse etcetera.
In other words, you must make a report, unless it would be unreasonable in your capacity as guidance counsellor – for example, something which would only have meaning for or be recognised by a psychiatrist or other specialist professional. I hope this has clarified the standard of your obligation to report to the Children’s Registry under the Child Care and Protection Act.
Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law and a women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions and comments via email to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com or fax to 968-2025. We regret we cannot supply personal answers.
