A mandatory reporter is a person who is required by state law to make a report of child abuse and/or neglect if they suspect it may be occurring. Most states require people with certain occupations – such as doctors or teachers – to be mandatory reporters, and some states have placed this requirement on all adults.
In recent years many families, community groups, advocates, and lawmakers have called attention to issues with mandatory reporting policies in Colorado. Many have brought a greater awareness to how mandatory reporting systems can have disproportionate impacts on certain groups such as under-resourced communities, communities of color, and people with disabilities as a result of implicit bias. Some have accused these systems of allowing families to be punished for actions that are simply an indication of inadequate resources, but that are incorrectly misinterpreted as neglect, leading to negative involvement with the child protection system. Finally, many mandatory reporters have themselves expressed confusion as to what the reporting requirements are and how one may go about fulfilling them.
In 2022, the Colorado legislature created the Mandatory Reporting Task Force to analyze the state’s mandatory reporting policies, learn about national best practices, and recommend changes that will help create a better system for Colorado. The Mandatory Reporting Task Force was created with House Bill 22-1240 and will be submitting its final report by January 1, 2025. This task force was placed in the Office of the Child Protection Ombudsman (CPO). The CPO has created many resources to help both task force members and the public understand how other states have sought to address these issues in state policies. As the Mandatory Reporting Task Force begins to finish up its work ahead of its final report release in the new year, the CPO has created this blog post to highlight and provide a quick recap of those resources.
The CPO is proud of the work it has done with the Mandatory Reporting Task Force, and is thrilled to make these resources available not only to those working on issues in Colorado, but also to policymakers, stakeholders, researchers, and the public wherever they may be located. These resources were created by the CPO’s Public Policy Analyst Bryan Kelley, who can be contacted by email.
Resources created by the CPO for the Mandatory Reporting Task Force
- 50-State Comparison of Mandatory Reporting Laws
- This resource contains 50-state databases and interactive maps on 8 key policy questions regarding mandatory reporting on the following topics: reporting timeframes, professional capacity, institutional policies, delegation, medical neglect, implicit bias, training, and exemptions. Each map is supplemented with a brief article highlighting trends and takeaways, and each map has links to download corresponding spreadsheets.
- This page also includes resources created by the CPO that identifies which groups in each state are required by statute to be mandatory reporters. This information is presented for each state in an alphabetical list using simplified categories to ease comparison across states. The full quote and citation of statute are also provided for each state. This can be viewed as either a PDF or spreadsheet.
- Alternative Processes and Services
- This policy scan presents information on “alternative processes and services” to help mandatory reporters aid families when there is no need to make a report of child abuse or neglect. This includes decision-making tools, consultations, and warmlines. The final two pages of this resource include a chart comparing the characteristics of nine different warmline systems.
- 50-State Policy Scan: Exceptions to Definitions of Abuse and Neglect
- This policy scan presents how states have incorporated exclusions, requirements, or special considerations into their legal definitions of abuse or neglect. For instance, statute in 10 states have established that circumstances do not qualify as neglect if they are solely tied to socioeconomic status. For each state with relevant provisions, a summary, citation, and link to statute is provided.
- 50-State Policy Scan: Standards for Reporting Abuse and Neglect
- This policy scan presents information on each state’s legal standards for reporting abuse or neglect. For instance, laws in 33 states and DC require mandatory reporters to report if they have “reasonable cause” to know, suspect or believe that abuse and/or neglect has taken place.
- 50-State Policy Scan: Specialized Occupations
- This policy scan outlines how other states have created policies specifically addressing mandatory reportingrequirements for attorneys, legal teams, and individuals working with victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
- 50-State Scan: Electronic Reporting Platforms
- This scan presents a list of states that offer online child abuse and/or neglect reporting platforms for mandatory reporters. For each of these states, a link is provided to the reporting platform website, as well as basic information such as whether the online reporting format is available for the general public or reserved for mandatory reporters.
- 50-State Policy Scan: Medical Child Abuse
- This policy scan presents a list of states that specifically address medical child abuse, Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and/or factitious illness by proxy in statute related to child abuse and neglect.
The CPO has also been supporting the work of the Timothy Montoya Task Force to Prevent Youth from Running from Out-of-Home Placement, which will be submitting its final report by October 1, 2025. A similar guide to the resources the CPO has created for that task force is available here.