Bolstered by a year-long reform effort, the California Legislature will soon consider an alternate path. A pair of early-stage bills aim to change how professionals report suspected child neglect. California’s Mandated Reporting to Community Supporting Task Force spent a year looking at ways to reform mandated reporting in California. More than 100 advocates, parents, caregivers, teachers, social workers and educators participated in the Mandated Reporting to Community Supporting Task Force. Its work wrapped up in September with a final report: Shifting From Reporting Families to Supporting Families. The report described reform of the mandated reporting system as necessary in order to tackle the overrepresentation of people of color in the child welfare system.
Last year, the state received more than 433,000 calls to its child maltreatment hotlines, but only about 11% were found to be legitimate. An even smaller share of those calls ended up being confirmed, or substantiated. Additionally, the majority of calls generated by mandated reporting — nearly 200,000 a year — are filed under the catch-all category of “general neglect.” That allegation, critics say, is often a reflection of poverty, such as insecure housing or food instability, rather than child safety.
