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William
Gaultiere, Ph.D.
Recently,
our New Hope Counselor Pat Clark helped a 12-year old girl
who called us to say she was being slapped, bruised, and
choked by her mother. Furthermore, the mother, who
didn’t have custody, was threatening to kidnap the girl
to take her out of state and away from the grandparents who
had custody. Today the girl is safe and the mother is
getting treatment.
Whenever
you get a call that leaves you with a “reasonable
suspicion” that child abuse (physical or sexual abuse
or physical neglect) may have occurred then New Hope
needs to make a report to the Children’s Protective Services
(CPS) in the state that the child lives in (other countries
probably have a similar system). “Suspected Child
Abuse Report” Forms can be located online. Here
is CA’s version: http://ag.ca.gov/childabuse/pdf/ss_8572.pdf. Quinn
or another staff person can help with filling out this form
and contacting CPS, but we need you to gather the necessary
information. Do your best to carefully and sensitively
learn and record:
- Child
Victim’s
identifying info (e.g., name, sex, age, address, phone,
location, name of school)
- Parents’ identifying
info
- Perpetrator’s
name and location
- Names of siblings (who might also be in danger)
- Description of the abuse (details are helpful)
- Quote what the child said happened
- Describe known history of similar incidents
Please
look over a “Suspected Child Abuse Report” for
more information or visit http://www.childhelpusa.org/.
If an elder is being abused follow the same procedure for
gathering information and alerting staff.
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