Protecting Children & Supporting Families: The Ethical Realities of Reporting Suspected Child Maltreatment (Advanced Mandated Reporting for Mental & Behavioral Health Professionals)
Live Event

Protecting Children & Supporting Families: The Ethical Realities of Reporting Suspected Child Maltreatment (Advanced Mandated Reporting for Healthcare Professionals)

Thu, Jan 21st, 2027
11:00am – 2:15pm US Eastern Time
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About the Event

Mental and behavioral health professionals throughout the United States are mandated reporters of suspected child maltreatment. Knowing the basic rules, however, rarely settles the hardest questions in clinical practice: whether a disclosure actually meets the legal threshold, what to tell a client and when, how to protect the therapeutic relationship, and how to work with child protective services (CPS) without disclosing more than the law requires.

This advanced workshop is designed for licensed practitioners who already understand the basic requirements of mandated reporting. Rather than reviewing fundamentals, it works through the gray areas that arise in practice with children, adolescents, adults who are parents, couples, families, and groups. Participants will analyze legal thresholds closely (including the distinction between future risk and current safety concerns, the role of the alleged perpetrator, and the limits of the professional-capacity trigger), examine the ethical and equity implications of reporting decisions in light of racial and socioeconomic disproportionality in the child welfare system, and practice informed consent approaches tailored to different client populations. The workshop also addresses strategies for mitigating risk when a report is not required, practices for working with clients before and after a report, and approaches to collaborating with CPS while protecting client confidentiality. Mental health practice case examples are used throughout.

Live Event
This live online event will be held as a Zoom Webinar. Attendees will have the option to interact through features such as the Chat and Q&A, but cameras and microphones will not be enabled.

Live Event Instructor

Kathryn Krase

Kathryn Krase

Kathryn Krase, Ph.D., J.D., M.S.W., is a social worker, lawyer, researcher, educator, and expert on professional ethics. She has significant experience as a family law practitioner, social work supervisor, along with more than 20 years of experience in faculty and administrative roles in undergraduate, masters, and doctoral level social work programs in and around New York City.

Dr. Krase is the Principal Consultant for Krase Consulting, in Brooklyn, New York, where she focuses on educating mental and physical health professionals on their general legal and ethical obligations.

She is an expert on the professional reporting of suspected child maltreatment. She has authored multiple books and articles on the subject. She has years of experience consulting with government and community based organizations to develop policy & practice standards.

Target Audience

This live interactive is intended for Behavioral Health and Physical Health professionals, including psychologists, social workers, counselors, marriage & family therapists, art therapists, dietitians, school psychologists, psychoanalysts, music therapists, behavior analysts, dietetic technicians, school counselors, teachers, addiction counselors, occupational therapies, physicians, peer support specialists, and nurses. It is appropriate for intermediate and above levels of knowledge.

Learning Objectives

After taking this activity, you should be able to:

  1. 1 Analyze clinical scenarios to distinguish situations that meet the legal definition of child maltreatment and suspicion threshold for a mandated report from those that present risk concerns without triggering a legal obligation
  2. 2 Identify ethical, legal, and equity conflicts that arise when mandated reporting obligations intersect with professional codes of ethics, including the role of bias in reporting decisions.
  3. 3 Apply a structured framework to guide practice with clients before a report, including population-specific informed consent practices and strategies to mitigate risk when a report is not required.
  4. 4 Apply a structured framework to guide practice with clients after a report, including disclosure decisions, repair of the therapeutic relationship, and collaboration with CPS that limits disclosure to what is legally required.
  5. 5 Describe at least three strategies to advocate for improvements to child protective services systems and reporting practices.

Choi, S., Knopf, E., Shim, K., Sanico, M., Hade, E. M., Terplan, M., ... & McNeely, J. (2026). Racial disparities in drug toxicology testing among pregnant women & infants: a meta-analysis and systematic review. Health Affairs Scholar, 4(4), qxag079. https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxag079

Edwards, F., Wakefield, S., Healy, K., & Wildeman, C. (2021). Contact with Child Protective Services is pervasive but unequally distributed by race and ethnicity in large US counties. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(30), e2106272118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2106272118

Espinoza, S., Gutierrez‐Sabatini, N., Dadras, I., Lee, K. I., Duran, M., & Garabedian, A. (2025). A family centered approach to mandated reporting: An anticarceral praxis for couple and family therapists working with BIPOC families. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 51(3), e70022. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.70022

Hymel, K. P., Laskey, A. L., Crowell, K. R., Wang, M., Armijo-Garcia, V., Frazier, T. N., ... & Karst, W. A. (2018). Racial and ethnic disparities and bias in the evaluation and reporting of abusive head trauma. The Journal of Pediatrics, 198, 137-143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.01.048

Kim, H., Wildeman, C., Jonson-Reid, M., & Drake, B. (2017). Lifetime prevalence of investigating child maltreatment among US children. American journal of public health, 107(2), 274-280. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303545

Krase, K., & Delong-Hamilton, T. (2020). Child welfare: Preparing social workers for practice in the field. Routledge.

Lau, C., Alqueza, K. L., Sonsteng-Person, M., & Copeland, V. (2024). “Unfortunately what’s right isn’t always what’s best”: Exploring teacher and school staff experiences with mandated reporting. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 18(5), 1110-1135. https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2023.2301349

Palusci, V. J., & Botash, A. S. (2021). Race and bias in child maltreatment diagnosis and reporting. Pediatrics, 148(1). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2020-049625

Pyland, C. P., Williams, M. G., & Mollen, D. (2024). Ethical and diversity considerations of mandatory reporting: Implications for training. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 18(4), 297. https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000485

Wildeman, C., Emanuel, N., Leventhal, J. M., Putnam-Hornstein, E., Waldfogel, J., & Lee, H. (2014). The prevalence of confirmed maltreatment among US children, 2004 to 2011. JAMA pediatrics, 168(8), 706-713. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.410

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Event Agenda

Agenda times are listed in US Eastern Time. That is 3 hours later than US Pacific Time. The event starts at 8:00am US Pacific Time.

11:00–11:10 AM: Introductions and Framing

Purpose and scope of an advanced session; limits of the presenter’s role; participants’ complicated cases


11:10–11:45 AM: The Legal Threshold, Revisited

Two-part test (definition + suspicion); close reading of neglect, physical abuse, domestic violence exposure, and parental substance use; persons legally responsible; professional-capacity trigger; risk vs. safety; timing and duplicate reports; immunity, failure to report, and documenting decisions; mental health case analysis


11:45 AM–12:15 PM: Where Law, Ethics, and Equity Collide

Competing obligations under professional codes; consequences of over-reporting; racial and socioeconomic disproportionality; where bias enters evaluation, testing, and reporting decisions; checking one’s lens; consultation and disagreement


12:15–12:30 PM: Break


12:30–1:05 PM: Before a Report: Informed Consent and Mitigating Risk

Informed consent as an ongoing process; tailoring consent for children, adolescents, parents, couples and families, clients with cognitive impairment, groups, and telehealth; responding when a disclosure begins; addressing risk through clinical practice; case analysis


1:05–1:35 PM: Making a Report and Working with Clients Afterward

Deciding whether and when to tell the client; minimum-necessary disclosure and confidentiality rules; documentation; managing rupture, advocacy, autonomy, and transfer of care; case analysis


1:35–2:05 PM: Collaborating with CPS and Advocating for Change

Responding to CPS requests for information; supporting families’ knowledge of their rights; reform proposals, alternative response, and “mandated supporting”


2:05–2:15 PM: Summary and Questions

Key takeaways; decision-making framework resource; questions and discussion

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