Dialogue: We all share the problem of preventing child abuse

Over recent months the roll call of children killed or maimed by their parents or guardians has served as a catalyst for raising public awareness and an insistence that something be done to make it stop.

The tragic case of James Whakaruru cast in harsh relief the effectiveness of our child-protection mechanisms and raised the professional accountability question of whether doctors, teachers and other groups closely involved with children should have to report suspected cases of abuse.

I hope public repulsion and disgust never diminishes.

But child abuse is a complex problem that requires cool heads to provide effective long-term solutions.

The reporting of it is one component of an overall care and protection service. The process of investigation leads to the provision of other services for victims of abuse in cases where the abuse is found to be substantiated.

New Zealand's child protection system also has a prevention focus that involves not only Government agencies but the non-Government groups which play a significant role as part of the wider child-protection network.

In essence, our system is based upon voluntary reporting which encapsulates values of persuasion over coercion, voluntary participation, and a confidence that we all share responsibility for reporting child abuse - not just certain nominated groups.

The alternative to this model is mandatory reporting, which obligates key professional groups to report physical and sexual abuse of children. It has been adopted in varying degrees in other countries.

Certainly, it could be argued that compulsory reporting makes it easier for professionals to share responsibility, but it can also result in vastly increased workloads and lessen the chance of a serious problem being dealt with properly.

This is backed up by international experience which indicates that mandatory reporting results in a significant increase in the rate of reporting but that the number of substantiated reports does not increase proportionately.

The effect of such increases has been to move resources to the investigation of child abuse at the cost of providing preventive services. It also places enormous stress on the capacity of voluntary sector providers which would need to pick up more of the treatment care services.

Another concern is that abusive parents or guardians would not seek medical help for their children under such a system, or the fear that bruises sustained through normal play would be interpreted as signs of abuse, resulting in a traumatic and intrusive breach of family privacy. It leads to people behaving defensively, which means children not getting medical treatment.

Problems in the child-protection system are best dealt with through developing and promoting better systems, training professionals, improved data collection systems and having good public education programmes in place, rather than mandatory reporting.

An aspect of this is the child-abuse reporting protocols between the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services and a number of non-government and government agencies such as Barnardos, Women's Refuge, Open Home Foundation, the fire service, police, and the ministries of health and education.

These protocols are voluntary agreements which set in place policies and procedures for reporting child abuse and neglect.

Under the encouragement of community liaison social workers appointed by Child, Youth and Family to raise awareness of child abuse, the number of agencies wishing to adopt these protocols continues to grow. Work is underway on better ways of increasing awareness and use of protocols within schools.

Neither voluntary nor mandatory reporting has been found to reduce the incidence of child abuse in the community. Public awareness, prevention, and confidence between government and voluntary agencies which deal with the problem will play their part.

The coercion of certain groups to report abuse belies the shared responsibility we all have to tackle this insidious, entrenched problem. This does not remove the need for vigilance from those individuals who have regular and professional contact with our children and young people.

* Steve Maharey is the Minister of Social Services.