The University of California recently released a proposal to update University policies on reporting child abuse and neglect.
If approved, the policy would modify current standards to comply with the California Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act, which aims to ensure fast identification of any perceptible child abuse or neglect.
The outline of the proposal specifically identified health care professionals, law enforcement officials and athletic coaches, among others, as “mandated reporters,” people who are legally required to report any perceived abuse, physical or emotional injury by non-accidental means, under the new policy.
Though the UC has not experienced any recent incidents concerning child abuse, the policy change proposal has emerged in the interest of being thorough following various abuse scandals such as the one at Pennsylvania State University, said UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein.
An assistant coach at Pennsylvania State University was convicted last year for abusing children for several years.
Suspicions of his behavior were unreported outside of a campus police investigation for more than a decade, according to several news organizations.
Many other universities and institutions have since reviewed and updated their policies in the wake of these scandals, Klein said.
The UC’s current policy on child abuse reporting is almost identical to the proposed policy and already requires certain employees, such as nurses and coaches, close to “vulnerable” people, for example children, elderly and disabled, to report abuse.
But the new proposed UC policy will increase the number of people required to report abuse to include graduate teaching assistants as well as assistant athletic coaches, said Lubbe Levin, assistant vice chancellor of Campus Human Resources at UCLA.
The changes would also make the supervisor of a mandated reporter also responsible if a suspicious activity goes unreported, Klein said.
While the proposal changes little of the UC’s existing policies, the change itself reflects the UC’s renewed commitment to report and identify suspected abuse, Klein said.
Dale Tate, a spokeswoman for UCLA Health Sciences, said that the health system caregivers working for the department have always had to sign a form registering as mandated reporters for alleged abuse.
The revised policy would not change much for the UCLA Health System, but the system is ready to revise the wording of prerequisite forms in order to comply with the policy change, Tate added.
Campus Human Resources is currently still working on procedures for implementation on the UCLA campus and is distributing the guidelines of the policy for review by employees.
UC employees can comment on the proposed policy through the end of today, and the policy may change slightly based on feedback the University receives – though the UC holds final authority on whether or not to approve the change, according to the proposed policy.
Email Hurley at churley@media.ucla.edu.