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How Childcare Providers Interpret ‘Reasonable Suspicion’ of Child Abuse

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Abstract

Background

Childcare providers are often “first responders” for suspected child abuse, and how they understand the concept of “reasonable suspicion” will influence their decisions regarding which warning signs warrant reporting.

Objective

The purpose of this study was to investigate how childcare providers interpret the threshold for reporting suspected abuse, and to consider the implications of these findings for professional training and development.

Method

A convenience sample of 355 childcare providers completed the Reasonable Suspicion of Child Abuse survey to quantify what likelihood of child abuse constitutes “reasonable suspicion.” Responses were examined for internal consistency, evidence of a group standard, and associations with professional and personal demographics.

Results

On a Rank Order Scale, responses for what constitutes “reasonable suspicion” ranged from requiring that abuse be “the” most likely cause (8 %) of an injury, to the second most likely (9 %), third (18 %), fourth (18 %), to even the seventh (8 %) or eighth (5 %) most likely cause of an injury. On a numerical probability scale, 21 % of respondents indicated that “abuse” would need to be ≥83 % likely before reasonable suspicion existed; 40 % stated that a likelihood between 53–82 % was needed; 27 % identified the necessary likelihood between 33–52 %; and 12 % set a threshold between 1–32 %.

Conclusions

The present finding that no consensus exists for interpreting “reasonable suspicion” suggests that a broadly accepted interpretive framework is needed in order to help prepare childcare providers to know when to report suspected abuse.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Grants from the Penn State Children, Youth, and Families Consortium and the Penn State Children’s Hospital. We thank Susan J. Boehmer, M.A., for her help with statistical analysis.

Conflict of interest

None.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, Hershey, PA, USA

    Benjamin H. Levi & Kathryn Crowell

  2. Department of Humanities, H134, Penn State College of Medicine, 500 University Drive, P.O. Box 850, Hershey, PA, 17033-0850, USA

    Benjamin H. Levi & Cheryl Dellasega

  3. School of Early Childhood Education, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

    Kerryann Walsh

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  1. Benjamin H. Levi
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  4. Cheryl Dellasega
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Correspondence to Benjamin H. Levi.

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Levi, B.H., Crowell, K., Walsh, K. et al. How Childcare Providers Interpret ‘Reasonable Suspicion’ of Child Abuse. Child Youth Care Forum 44, 875–891 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-015-9302-5

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