Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse and the Responsibility To Serve the Best Interest of the Client : An Ethical Dilemma? / Laura Palmer and Sandra Lee.

Most professional psychologists who practice with children will face the ethical dilemma of child abuse reporting at some point in their careers. This paper explores the ethical dilemma inherent between ethics that charge psychologists to always choose a course of action best serving the client and mandatory child abuse reporting laws. Some of the current definitions of the laws and of ethical principles are reviewed, along with relevant statistics and research. The current practices in child welfare and law enforcement, which the professional psychologist should be aware of when faced with making a report of suspected child abuse, are also detailed. The paper is organized around questions which encourage the reader to assess his or her position on this issue and it offers several short- and long-term interventions for the problem of child abuse. It concludes that the available evidence suggests it is in the best interest of all children to report perpetrators of child abuse when legally mandated, but, with awareness of the therapeutic and legal consequences. (Contains 73 references.) (RJM)

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