Sign over the entrance to the Maine Office of Child and Family Services in Augusta. (Photo by Jim Neuger/ Maine Morning Star)
With recent legislation updating Maine’s definition of neglect so that it can no longer be confused with poverty, child welfare officials are working on ways to take the change beyond semantics. But they are finding a challenge in ensuring all mandated reporters are up to speed.
“It’s not just a change in statute. It’s actually a change in practice and that’s what we want to see happening in the field, on the ground when we’re working with families,” said Bobbi Johnson, director of the Office of Child and Family Services.
In June, Gov. Janet Mills signed legislation to update the state’s definition of child abuse and neglect that legal experts have argued is easy to conflate with poverty. The proposal had an emergency preamble, so it took effect immediately upon her signature.
The updated definition distinguishes between whether a parent or caregiver is willfully withholding a child’s essential needs and their financial ability to provide them. Johnson spoke with the Maine Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday about the ways her agency is trying to bring that distinction into practice.
Johnson said her staff reviewed current child welfare policies and practices for areas that need updated language, further changes or additional guidance to be in line with the new definition. The agency has held town halls for staff to ask questions about the policy change, she added.
She also said mandated reporter training materials have been updated to include information about the change and scenarios of poverty that wouldn’t rise to the updated standards for neglect. For example, a child disclosing that there isn’t enough food at home or becoming unhoused because their caregivers can’t afford to pay rent.
Mandated reporters are a usual conduit between children who are abused or neglected and the state’s child welfare system. State law requires professionals who are likely to come in contact with infants and other children to alert the appropriate authorities of potential abuse or neglect.
However, mandated reporters are only required by law to be trained once every four years, so Johnson said the agency is faced with a challenge of making sure that reporters who aren’t scheduled to reup their training are aware of the new law.
There are thousands of mandated reporters in the state, such as teachers and medical providers, but Johnson said her agency doesn’t keep a roster of them all. Instead, she said they can send information to schools, medical practices and other social services agencies that employ mandated reporters and ask them to share that information.
Committee co-chair Sen. Henry Ingwersen (D-York), who is a former educator, asked Johnson about reaching out to the state Department of Education about an updated training, which she said they are looking into.
Rep. Lucien Daigle (R-Fort Kent), who has been a dentist for over 40 years, said he worked for an organization that did a virtual mandated reporter training annually. Though it was redundant when there weren’t changes to the law, he said refreshing that knowledge every year was important.
