Key Facts About Child Protective Services and Child Welfare Agencies

art 1 - Key Facts About Child Protective Services and Child Welfare Agencies

Though most of the information in this section is meant to explain why so many non-offending parents get victimized by the CPS system, we start by correcting a very common misconception about mandated reporting.

1. In California, and Many Other States, Mandated Reporters Do NOT Have to Report to Child Protective Services.

We start here because so many counselors, teachers, doctors, and other mandated reporters, many of whom are already sympathetic to the problems mothers experience with CPS, say there's nothing they can do about it. They believe their state laws require that whenever they suspect child abuse, they must make a report to CPS. But that's not, in fact, what the law in California and many other states says at all.

As you can see clearly in the California law printed here, the law gives mandated reporters a choice of institutions to which they can report. You can make your report to police, sheriffs, probation departments, or child welfare agencies. In fact, in California and many other states we're familiar with, the mandated reporting laws put child welfare agencies last on the list of options.

Here is the section of the California State Mandated Reporter Law that pertains to whom one should report.

California Penal Code Section 11165.9
11165.9. Reports of suspected child abuse or neglect shall be made by mandated reporters, or in the case of reports pursuant to Section 11166.05, may be made, to any police department or sheriff's department, not including a school district police or security department, county probation department, if designated by the county to receive mandated reports, or the county welfare department. Any of those agencies shall accept a report of suspected child abuse or neglect whether offered by a mandated reporter or another person, or referred by another agency, even if the agency to whom the report is being made lacks subject matter or geographical jurisdiction to investigate the reported case, unless the agency can immediately electronically transfer the call to an agency with proper jurisdiction. When an agency takes a report about a case of suspected child abuse or neglect in which that agency lacks jurisdiction, the agency shall immediately refer the case by telephone, fax, or electronic transmission to an agency with proper jurisdiction. Agencies that are required to receive reports of suspected child abuse or neglect may not refuse to accept a report of suspected child abuse or neglect from a mandated reporter or another person unless otherwise authorized pursuant to this section, and shall maintain a record of all reports received.

One obvious question after reading this law is why are so many mandated reporters taught incorrectly that they must report to CPS when the law in many states so clearly gives mandated reporters a choice. The reasons will become clearer in the section on the history of child protection. But in brief, CPS agencies were established back in the late 1960's and 1970's at a time when a strong national consensus had developed that children shouldn't suffer abuse in the home. However, it was also a time when family violence was not yet viewed as criminal, and perpetrators were not held accountable. CPS powers and functions were shaped to reflect that ambivalent constellation of beliefs. And today, despite advances, there is still strong societal resistance to holding family violence perpetrators accountable. And there's a corresponding tendency to channel intrafamilial child abuse cases into CPS where policies and powers are set to detain the child and not the perpetrator.

But the main point we want to underscore here is that mandated reporters in many states can choose not to report to CPS. You have other options, and often those other options will be much more beneficial for both the mother and the child.

NOTE 1: Finding the Text of Your State's Mandated Reporting Law - Most states have their full legal codes on the Internet in searchable form. Go to your state's legal codes page. In most states, the mandated reporting laws will be in your state's Penal Code. Search 'child abuse mandated reporter' or similar term.

NOTE 2: Cross Reporting - In California and in many other states the child abuse mandated reporting laws require 'cross-reporting' between agencies. This means that the agency which receives the initial report must immediately send copies of the report to other designated agencies. So if CPS receives the initial report, CPS must immediately send a copy of the report to the relevant police agency and to the District Attorney's office, and visa versa. This cross-reporting requirement has little effect on the problems we're trying to outline here because in general practice the agency that first receives the report is the agency which takes primary responsibility for handling the case.