School Counselors and Child Abuse

The objective of this look into paper is to determine how well drill counselors, who argon human serve well providers and mandated sketchers of pincer horror, know how to detect misdirect and whether or not this acquirement has an effect on them actually making a report. As mandated reporters, condition counselors be not prepared to detect signs of youngster hollo and their motifiness of preparedness is a directly correlated with their low levels of coverage.Unluckily, it is a frigidness fact that youngster abuse exists all over the world, but fortunately educators and individuals in human services are beginning to open the eyeball of many individuals just about the power they have in prevention, intervening and changing the lives of those unnatural by the horrid effect of child abuse. A sort out of individuals that can have a superb effect in empowering those affected by abuse are civilizehouse counselors. Because of their moveions with children and their fam ilies, they can be potent in recognizing and coverage child abuse. With the accountability rearing and tools they can take a leak a world of difference.There is very little research on aim counselors and their abilities in recognizing and reportage child abuse. The research that does exist shows a need in extensive training in recognition child abuse and what to do thereafter. inform counselors reported acquaintance that they are mandated by police force to report mistrust of child abuse, but lacked authorization in their big businessman to detect and report child abuse. Training is necessary in undergraduate/graduate nurtureing and as a professional in regularize for a domesticate counselor to be fully effective as a mandated reporters.According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, (NCANDS), which collects and synopsis data from child protective services, 3. 3 one million million child abuse reports were made in 2009 of which three fifths of the rep orts were made by travel rapidly breaker point SCHOOL COUNSELORS AND small fry twist 3 mandated reports such as doctors, teachers, sidereal day care providers, counselor, etc. who because of the nature of their job have contact with these children. 3. 3 million reports were made in United States in the year 2009 and it is unfortunate to regularize that perhaps millions to a greater extent abuses occurred but went on unreported.To report or not to report, that is the question that many individuals ask themselves when in a possession were they cleverness hold alert in painsation. There are times when individuals who have vital information decent in front of them but see right thought it because of the lack of knowledge and experience. An often happy and extrovert child might begin to show sudden signs of melancholy and introversion repay up to(p) to be versedly abused by a family member, but a professional who contributes with the child on a day to day basis, for modelin g, a teacher or a civilize counselor whitethorn not be able to detect these changes in character and as a result make no reports.The duration of time that children interact with rail officials and administrators often times equal and even exceed the nub of time that they spend with family members. At times children and certain school officials form bonds that are fused together by trust and respect and repayable to the trust that has been formed, often times these officials gain insight about these childrens lives. One school official that needs to build rapport with a child in order to best service that child, is a school counselor.Since rapport is usually built between child and counselor, one would postulate that the counselor would be able to detect child abuse right away, but it is evident through my readings that school councilors are in heroical need of guidance themselves. Though they are there to guide others, school counselors lack the confidence and knowledge when i t comes to detecting and reporting child abuse cheeks weather it be neglect, emotional abuse, cozy abuse or material abuse bodily Running Head SCHOOL COUNSELORS AND CHILD ABUSE 4 abuse. According to Bryant (2009), 86. % of the 193 participants in his direct reported that they gained knowledge about child abuse reporting through experience at work and not necessarily through training. Goldman and Padayachi (2005) topic looked at school counselors and their reporting behavior and whether or not they needed any further training. fairish as Bryant (2009) study concluded that further education and training was necessary, Goldman and Padayachi (2005) study also reported that 95% of the participants in the study suggested that they needed more than(prenominal) training in how to handle and deal with children and sexual abuse.The latter researchers did their study in Australia, where child abuse constabularys differ from one state to another. For example in New South Wales, it is mandatory by law for school officials to report any suspicion of child abuse. It was not always the case in New South Wales though because reports by school force of child abuse greatly increased from 11. 4% to 24% one time the new law took into action. In Queensland were the research study was conducted, school violence were not mandated by law to report suspicion of child abuse.According to Goldman and Padayachi (2005) school personnel in New South Wales were being train more intensively about neglect and child abuse because of the mandatory reporting laws. So, could it be possible that school personnel are not trained as intensively and excessively because there is no law indicating that suspicion of child abuse be reported? Would it be fair to recount that people are reporting because it is mandated by law? Or are people reporting more because they have more training in dealing with child abuse? Is it an issue of law, ethics or knowledge?In order to determine whether or no t school counselors al fate certain situations as abuse or not, Goldman and Padayachi (2005) created four hypothetical Running Head SCHOOL COUNSELORS AND CHILD ABUSE 5 situations where a child is interacting with a counselor and in all four situations the tip of peak the child reveals is different, for example, in one situation a child draws a picture of a man and makes vague statements about a atrocious man, but does not make any specific statements about being sexually abused (Goodman and Padayachi, 2005), and in another situation, a girl tells her school counselor and her grandmother that she is being sexually abused. School personnel are suppose to rate the degree of suspicion from substantial to no reason.According to the results, the degree of suspicion was from substantial to moderate, which indicates that the 122 participants were well aware of what signs to look for in sexual abuse. Majority of participants were able to detect child abuse, but were un seeming to report their suspicions when asked if they would report it if the child denied of being sexually abused. This can indicates that suspecting and reporting do not necessarily go hand in hand, curiously in a state were reporting is not mandated by law. According to Bryant (2009), the identification number one reason the participants in his study indicated that they would report suspicion of child abuse was because of law which goes back to, are people reporting because of law, knowledge, ethics?It seems to me, to be more in favor of the law but every way, if childrens lives are being saved would it matter if its because of law or ethics? Probably the answer would be no, until peoples perceptions are changed. Being able to recognize signs of abuse in a hypothetical situation can vary greatly with the degree of confidence that a person has of his or her skills in recognizing signs of abuse. In Bryans (2009) study, participants were confident in their ability to recognize signs of physical abu se but were not as certain in their abilities to recognize emotional abuse perhaps because physical abuse if much more Running Head SCHOOL COUNSELORS AND CHILD ABUSE 6 observable, which indicates that much more training is needed in recognizing the more discrete signs of abuse.In Goodman and Padayachi (2005) study, the participants were asked about their confidence level of their knowledge of sexual abuse, and only less than 10 per cent of the school counselors in Queensland were completely confident in their knowledge of symptoms to identify sexual abuse, while a considerable portion of them, 47 per cent, had little confidence, and 37 per cent had no confidence (Goodman and Padayachi, 2005). The literature that was used in this research project proves that school counselors are not prepared to identify signs of child abuse especially emotional abuse because signs of emotional abuse are a lot more discrete than physical abuse.Some research shows that school counselors are able to d etect signs of child abuse but are less likely to report child abuse if a child denies being abused. In order to facilitate burst understanding of child abuse in terms of detecting signs of abuse whether it is emotional or physical, colleges need to better prepare students before they start working as school counselors. School districts also need to have mandated training for incoming and ongoing school counselors. In order to help school counselor with becoming more assertive reporters of child abuse, school districts need to have mandatory training and colleges need to have courses that prepare students in how to report and the importance of reporting child abuse.