Child abuse reporting statutes in all United States jurisdictions impose obligations on psychologists. Requiring psychologists to report known or suspected abuse may interfere with psychotherapy and discourage abusers from seeking therapy. Although the child abuse reporting statutes vary considerably, state statutes share common features. There…

Recent state legislation aimed at dealing with the problem of child abuse has been confined to statutes affecting the reporting of abuse. The basic objective of these statutes is the identification of the abused child. The statutes all have two fundamental elements: a designated class of persons--teachers, doctors, social workers--who do the…

Provided are guidelines for educators in New York State to fulfill responsibilities mandated by the Child Protective Services Law, designed to protect abused and maltreated children, which include writing and updating the policies of the school district, actual case reporting, case coordination, in-service training programs, and general…

Discussed is the implementation of the New York State Child Protective Services Act with emphasis on the implications for teachers who may be the subject of a child abuse or neglect report. (IM)

This paper, first in a series of special reports concerning disability and the family, presents a review of the relationship between abuse and disabilities, arguing that roughly 25 percent of all disabilities are caused by child or spousal abuse. A national survey revealed that 12 states have legislation addressing these issues, and the paper…

The problems of enacting and implementing child advocacy laws at State and Federal levels are presented along with two cases which illustrate these problems and point to the advocacy role that psychologists can perform. The first case deals with the use of corporal punishment in family day care homes in Michigan. In 1974, rules against corporal…

A detailed ecological model is used to develop a framework for assessing the incidence of child abuse among American Indians. Macro, exo, and micro levels of analysis are extended by the inclusion of mediating and potentiating factors that may either contribute to or ameliorate maltreatment or abuse. Abuse and its consequences are considered in…

This paper presents examples of types of corporal punishment and a content analysis of newspaper articles since 1977 dealing with corporal punishment in public and nonpublic schools. Examples are used to illustrate types of punishment, paddling injuries, injuries to other parts of the body, special punishments devised by teachers, deaths due to…