Jan 28, 2023 School Administrators Partially Vindicated By Debbie Ausburn A judge dismissed child abuse charges against two California administrators, although they both still face charges of failing to report...
Jan 23, 2023 When Does Use of a Legal Drug Warrant a Finding of Abuse or Neglect? By Debbie Ausburn A story from Arizona illustrates a common conundrum for people who serve young people -- when use of a legal drug warrants a child abuse...
Dec 19, 2022 Criminal Laws Differ from Mandated Reporter Laws By Debbie Ausburn A Colorado appeals court vacated a defendant's conviction for attempting to entice a child into his vehicle for purposes of sexual...
Dec 17, 2022 California's ACEs Screening May Be Backfiring By Debbie Ausburn There is accumulating evidence that California's program requiring doctors to screen children for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)...
Dec 12, 2022 Mandated Reporter Charges Dismissed By Debbie Ausburn A judge has dismissed charges against the owner of a child care center in Connecticut. Law enforcement officers alleged that she failed...
Oct 26, 2022 Childcare Workers Charged with Felonies for Scaring Children By Debbie Ausburn Law enforcement has charged former employees at a Mississippi childcare center with felony child abuse after they donned a mask similar...
Sep 26, 2022 The Art of Listening to Children’s Reports By Debbie Ausburn A story from Boston illustrates one difficulty that mandated reporters often face, which is piecing together details that, by themselves,...
Sep 19, 2022 Feds Pay $8 million Over Missed Signs of Child Abuse By Debbie Ausburn A federal clinic in Maine has agreed to an $8 million settlement of claims that its doctors failed to diagnose signs of child abuse. The...
Jul 25, 2022 Mandated Reporters Must Make Formal Reports By Debbie Ausburn Recently, I have seen an increasing number of people, including clients, get in trouble for failing to report suspected abuse either in...
Jun 29, 2022 Lower mandated reporting thresholds correlate to more reports, fewer substantiations By Debbie Ausburn A recent study concluded that states whose mandated reporter laws require only a suspicion of abuse, rather than a reasonable belief,...
May 07, 2022 High School Hazing Didn’t Require Mandated Report By Debbie Ausburn An Arkansas prosecutor made a controversial decision not to charge school officials with failure to make a mandated report of a hazing...
Apr 27, 2022 Youth Organizations Need to Affirmatively Support Their Mandated Reporters By Debbie Ausburn An interesting study from Israel illustrates one of the core flaws that I have found in mandated reporting laws, which is that the...