Whether you are a mandated reporter or not everyone has a role in making sure help-seekers get the support they need

• Don’t over report! If you are a mandatory reporter only report clear harms within your state’s requirements.  These laws are often quite specific and only allow providers to override their HIPPA or other confidentiality requirements based on clear, known harms and not guesses or “a hunch.” Make decisions around mandatory reporting from the assumption that the report will cause harm. 

• Work to change or abolish mandatory reporting laws to ensure that people experiencing harm have autonomy over their own experiences and information and drastically reduce the number of people who are required to report.

• Burden of Benefit: Ensure that any regulation (law or professional standard) requires action only when they can PROVE benefit to the person experiencing harm

  • Disproportionately, interactions with Child Protective Services (CPS) and law enforcement negatively impact the lives of many marginalized communities (QTBIPOC, immigrants, people with disabilities) and that laws that mandate the involvement of these systems will have a difficult time passing a burden of benefit test.  

• Harm Reduction: If you have to make a mandated report be sure to meaningly notify and involve the person experiencing the harm and infuse choice wherever possible

• Identify alternatives: Utilize lessons from transformative justice approaches that center community-based processes outside of the criminal legal system to address and prevent harms and ensure accountability (Creative Interventions, 2012; Goodmark, 2018)