Connecticut Requires Schools to Send Abuse Guidelines to Parents

Connecticut has made some changes to its child welfare laws, effective this fall.  It added paid camp staff and volunteer staff and administration to the list of mandated reporters.  Training volunteers and staff has long been a best practice for camps, and a separate statute shouldn't be necessary, but legislatures love to find and plug "loopholes."  

A more substantive change is the requirement that schools send electronic versions of the guidelines that the Governor's Task Force on Justice for Abused Children developed for sports participation.  You can get a copy of that report here.  There seems to be no evidence that disseminating this report more broadly will protect more children and be worth the extra resources that the schools spend.  The report, however, does have some excellent suggestions and would be a good resource for other youth-serving organizations as they review their own policies.