According to Ben Matthews, “Child maltreatment presents challenges in the realms of social welfare, human rights, public health, criminal justice, social justice, and economics. Policy discussions and research concerning the identification and response to maltreatment often treat physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect together as if they are the same. However, the different forms of maltreatment have different characteristics, contexts, and consequences. For example, severe physical abuse of a toddler and sexual abuse, are very different from neglect of a teenaged child produced only by poverty. Differences across and even within the types of maltreatment, suggests the need for some legal and policy responses to detect …show more content…
Mandatory reporting laws have been created in different forms, primarily as a way of identifying existing cases of severe maltreatment which are likely to otherwise remain hidden, so that the child’s victimization can cease, health rehabilitation and other support can be delivered, the child’s safety can be promoted, and, where necessary, perpetrators can be held accountable. The purpose of this paper is to provide information on some of the key characteristics of different types of child abuse and neglect and provide information on the nature and functions of child abuse reporting laws and mandated reporters.
Child Maltreatment To clarify the need to report maltreatment, it is first necessary to explain the broad abstract nature of the types of child maltreatment. According to the handbook for child protection, there are four types of maltreatment and several subsets of each, they are: emotional or psychological abuse, neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse.
1. Emotional or psychological abuse occurs when the relationship between the parent or caregiver and the child is characterized by pervasive or persistent acts or omissions which result in serious emotional harm or present an imminent risk of doing so, examples of emotional abuse include verbal threats, bizarre discipline and exposure to domestic