Bipartisan advocates
united to keep families together
POLICY SOLUTIONS DESIGNED TO SUPPORT, NOT SEPARATE, FAMILIES
Ending Anonymous Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting
Children who are safe at home should not be traumatized by unnecessary and disruptive investigations into their family life. Recent research shows that a staggering 53% of Black children will experience a CPS investigation in their lifetime. Single mothers are also disproportionately affected by hotline calls. Investigations can be initiated by anyone, including anonymous callers who have an agenda to cause harm to another parent.
Anonymous tips have increasingly become a way that disgruntled relatives, neighbors, or others in the community harass innocent families, while wasting the valuable and limited resources of state and local authorities. Anonymous reporting has very low rates of substantiation—a study found just 1.5% of hotline calls from anonymous sources are deemed substantiated by CPS authorities, and these calls flood child abuse hotlines with unwarranted calls and makes it less likely that agencies will be able to identify children who truly need CPS assistance.
Congress should end the use of anonymous reporting, instead ensuring that reports are made confidentially. Ending anonymous reporting will not prevent hotline calls based on a genuine objective concern about the wellbeing of a child that merits investigation. In fact, this measure will help streamline and target investigative resources to children most in need of protection.
To Learn More:
Dale Morgan Cecka, Abolish Anonymous Reporting to Child Abuse Hotlines, 64 Cath. U.L. Rev. 51 (2014)
NEWS AND INFORMATION ABOUT MANDATED CHILD ABUSE REPORTING
UFA Members Offer Testimony In New York State on Mandated Reporting
February 2023
As the New York Assembly Committee on Children and Families prepares to hold hearings on mandated reporting of child abuse and neglect, three UFA members have submitted testimony. Written testimony is available from Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, Parental Rights Foundation, and the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.
Parental Rights Foundation, August 4, 2021
On July 28, the Health and Human Services Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) voted unanimously to endorse model legislation to require confidential reporting to child abuse hotlines.
The model, drafted by the Parental Rights Foundation and their allies, would put an end to anonymous hotline reports, which too often are used to “weaponize” the system.
Children's Rights, June 2021
Children's Rights issues a landmark report calling on child welfare to stop unnecessary state involvement in the lives of Black families, dramatically reduce the number of children entering state foster care and prevent the numerous harms that systems impose on Black youth. One of the key strategies identified in the report is ending anonymous child abuse reporting.
Ruchi Kapoor, The Imprint, December 16, 2020
"Asking neighbors and friends to spy on their communities and report back to a big brother agency is not the cure-all to the problem of child abuse that CDHS seems to think that it is. Not only will CDHS waste more resources to screen out the call, which has a high probability of happening, but that neighbor has now undermined their relationship with a family they were probably just trying to help. "
Dale Margolin Cecka, Washington Post, May 6, 2015
"Each year, about 3.4 million calls are made to these state-run phone lines. Tragically, only a fraction of these calls are made by trained professionals reporting actual abuse or neglect. The others are made, often anonymously, by people who don’t know what constitutes abuse (or, more nefariously, by those who want to punish the parent). But because child protective service agencies are required to act, these calls can result in innocent parents losing their kids, tangling families in a complicated system."