The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services has launched a new website, KeepKidsSafe.pa.gov to explain the changes in Pennsylvania’s child protection laws that took effect Dec. 31.
“The site includes basic information on recognizing and reporting child abuse, changes to the Child Protective Services Law, and online ChildLine clearances with links to the applicable background check clearances and requirements,” said State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129).
It should be noted that most organizations directly involved with services for children already have their own stringent background check clearance policies in place. The new law sets minimum requirements, but nothing in this law prohibits organizations from establishing or continuing even more stringent internal policies, Cox said.
Anyone with suspicions that a child is being abused should call the department’s statewide ChildLine hotline at 1-800-932-0313, Cox said.
We don’t need any more laws. We need school choice, school vouchers and term limits.
These laws trouble me. On the one hand, no one wants children to be threatened. On the other, these laws present a situation in which one citizen is encouraged to denounce another, and not always with the strongest of evidence, and anonymously. “Anyone with suspicions that a child is being abused should call the department’s statewide ChildLine hotline”–who’s to say what constitutes abuse? Sexual assault? Sure, I think we all can agree. Letting your kids walk a mile home by themselves? What about spanking? This what the Germans call a Spitzelgesellschaft, a society of snitches.
Kudos Brad. You gave voice to something many thought but where reluctant to say.
According to the KeepKidsSafe website – the link above is fixed, btw– one of the grounds for making a report without fear of consequence for it being false as long as it is in “good faith” does not fall within the definition of Sandusky-like abuse or objective physical damage — namely “Causing or substantially contributing to serious mental injury to a child through any act or failure to act or a series of such acts or failures to act. ”
IOW, the wrong social worker interpreting spanking or letting a child walk a mile home by himself as “mental injury” could lead to the infliction of suffering on a loving family, it seems.