Beyond and around mandatory reporting in nursing practice: Interrupting a series of deferrals

Abstract

Nurses are well positioned to contribute to child protection efforts but are underutilised. This paper describes a critical discursive analysis of nursing responses to child neglect and abuse (CN&A) in British Columbia, Canada. Legal and practice guidelines were analysed alongside nurse interview texts, offering a glimpse into how nurses prevent CN&A in their everyday practice with families. Results show how the primacy of mandatory reporting to child protection authorities coordinates a series of deferrals and how nurses engage with and interrupt these deferrals in everyday practice. Nurses' relational approaches are essential to gain access to the private sphere of the family to assess, plan, elicit cooperation with interventions and monitor the situation. They considered reporting to be one among many possible responses. This study highlights how nursing contributions to prevention are largely overlooked and points to the potential for a more significant role for nurses in a public health approach to child protection.

Public Health Nurses’ Professional Practices to Prevent, Recognize, and Respond to Suspected Child Maltreatment in Home Visiting: An Interpretive Descriptive Study

“…This results in a clinical practice that can place nurses in the position of perceiving that they are simultaneously supporting and policing families. Over the past 20 years, accumulating evidence suggests that there is increasing concern that these hard-won trusting relationships may be at risk for irrevocable damage, in particular from involvement in child protection issues (Browne et al, 2010; Crisp & Green Lister, 2004; Davidov et al, 2012; Einboden et al, 2019; Lines et al, 2017; Mulcahy & McCarthy, 2008; Peckover, 2002).…”

Extending the methodology of critical discourse analysis using Haraway's figurations: The example of The Monstrous Perpetrator within contemporary responses to child neglect and abuse

“…CDA's orientation to addressing social injustice offers an opportunity to depart from the usual research focus on the types of violence children endure, instead encouraging an investigation of relations and operations of power within child protection practices (Einboden, 2017). It was chosen as a methodology to examine nursing responses to CN&A, because of the orientation to produce knowledge as a resource for social action: to disrupt discriminatory child protection practices; and to shape equitable responses to children's safety that are respectful of and meaningful to children and their families (see Einboden, 2017; Einboden et al, 2019).…”

Nursing students' attitudes toward reporting child abuse and neglect: A cross‐sectional study in Turkey

“…Nurses, the largest group of health professionals, are among the occupational groups in contact with children at increased risk of abuse and neglect (Lines et al, 2018). However, many studies have reported that nurses face barriers to reporting child maltreatment cases (Einboden et al, 2019; Elarousy & Abed, 2019; Lee & Kim, 2018). As a result of a study conducted with 930 nurses in Australia, it was reported that nurses' knowledge and attitudes differed toward different types of maltreatment.…”

“…However, many studies have reported that nurses face barriers to reporting child maltreatment cases (Einboden et al, 2019;Elarousy & Abed, 2019;Lee & Kim, 2018). As a result of a study conducted with 930 nurses in Australia, it was reported that nurses' knowledge and attitudes differed toward different types of maltreatment.…”