Jurisdictions, lived experts, community partners, and advocates around the country are using data and research to explore what works best to ensure child safety and keep families safely together. Deep-dive examinations into the long-standing practice of mandated reporting are important to that overall analysis. As currently designed, mandated reporting is a well-intentioned but often overused and misused practice that can inflict unwarranted harm and compound trauma on children and families.
A range of strategies for transforming mandated reporting are being designed and tested across the U.S., with the goal to design alternatives to child protection hotlines as entry points for providing support to families. These alternatives, which include warmlines and community pathways, offer prevention-based support to families that have been identified to be in crisis but are in situations that do not warrant the initiation of a child protection investigation.
In December 2024, 13 jurisdictional teams comprised of child protection agencies, mandated reporters, lived experts, community partners, and other advocates and stakeholders gathered to explore approaches to transforming mandated reporting. The convening brought forward information on key issues, challenges, strategies, and early lessons from change efforts. Conversations were organized around seven key levers for change:
7 Levers for Mandated Reporting Transformation
- Engage people with lived expertise to determine the paths forward for systemic change, create mechanisms for shared decision-making, and address historical trauma and harm.
- Engage cross-system partners to determine the paths forward for systemic change and create mechanisms for shared decision-making.
- Start with and routinely examine trends and research in mandated reporting, in order to clearly understand issues; address bias, disproportionality, and disparities; and identify effective alternatives.
- Build a new narrative and shift mindsets around mandated reporting through the use of messaging, and by acknowledging cultures, behaviors, and harms — all informed through lived experience, data, and research.
- Develop reporter awareness, education, training, and tools to reduce unnecessary and inappropriate reporting to child protection hotlines.
- Re-examine existing funding and policy approaches related to mandated reporting, including the definition of child neglect and laws that hold mandated reporters liable for non-reporting.
- Design better pathways for families to access support within their communities and outside of the child welfare system, including increased economic investments in communities to strengthen families, and building trauma-informed, healing-centered support for children and families.