Stakeholders' Views Gathered at Stakeholder Engagement Session on "Proposal on the Mandatory Reporting Requirement for Suspected Child Abuse Cases"

Participants generally supported the recommendation to define children as persons aged below 18. A few considered it more appropriate to define them as persons aged below 16 as children aged at 16 and 17 were capable of making informed decision on when to seek help as victims of sexual abuse.

Participants generally supported the categories of practitioners as proposed by the Government as mandated reporters. In addition, some participants suggested to add practitioners of private tuition centres and institutions providing extra-curricular activities and church activities to children and the Police.

Some participants showed concerns on the proposed designation of teachers as mandated reporters, considering that the proposed MRR might deter some teachers from providing additional coaching to students outside school hours to support their students' academic or social development.

Some participants considered that the definition of designated professionals for the pre-school education sector, especially for kindergarten-cum-child care centres, should be specified in greater detail.

• To provide clear definition on the types of suspected child abuse cases required to be reported and the timeframe for reporting to avoid ambiguity and confusion.

• To provide a standardised and objective assessment tools (such as checklists) and procedural guides with case illustrations to facilitate mandated reporters.

• To simplify the three-tier reporting mechanism into two-tier with delineation of the liability of non-reporting under each tier.

• To provide clear guidelines on the roles and responsibilities of all relevant parties (including the child, the family, the agency service units, the professionals, etc.), as well as the procedures for reporting a suspected child abuse case involving multi-disciplinary collaboration to avoid repetitive reporting and delayed reporting.

• To set up a system for mandated reporters to check up on the reported cases, and build in an automatic notification function so that all service units/organisations would be notified if the children receiving their services were the subjects of reported cases.

Some participants commented on whether or not certain types of cases should be reported under MRR, such as bullying between the peer, neglect cases for children aged over 16, children who witnessed domestic violence, parental incapacity due to poverty, drug abused mothers during pregnancy (causing harm to the babies), etc..

A designated hotline for reporting is recommended, especially for outside office hours, for operation by the Family and Child Protective Services Units (FCPSUs) of SWD.

An appeal mechanism is suggested to protect the mandated reporters. If there is litigation, the party to bear the cost of legal proceedings (e.g. individual teacher as mandated reporter or the school as employer) should be clearly defined.

Some participants suggested to adopt a more sympathetic and humanistic approach in determining the level of penalty. Members of the public and the community should be encouraged to report suspected child abuse cases instead of relying solely on a penalty system. The Good Citizen Award scheme operated by the Police serves as a good reference point.

Mandatory pre-employment training on child protection and MRR should be provided to all mandated reporters. Regular refresher training should also be arranged for veteran practitioners. In addition to e-training, other forms of training such as face-to-face training, case study, case sharing sessions should be available to suit the training needs of different professions.

Module of trauma-sensitive education should be included in the teacher training to enhance their understanding of and capacity for handling traumatised children. A few participants suggested that training on mediation be provided to school heads to equip them for dealing with possible tense parent-teacher relationship or disputes arising from cases reported by teachers as mandated reporters.

In addition to mandated reporters, some participants suggested to provide training to those personnel who had close contact with children, e.g. tutors, coaches, welfare workers, etc. as well to enhance their knowledge and ability in the identification of suspected child abuse cases.

Provision of training to volunteers is also suggested to help them understand their roles and responsibilities in child protection as well as allay their concerns.

There was concern that child victims and their parents would be reluctant to seek help when their family members were the perpetrator for fear of their possible legal consequence. The Government should strengthen public education on child protection and by-stander intervention to prevent child abuse.

Education on child protection should be enhanced for parents to refrain from using corporal punishment in educating and raising their children.

It was important to cultivate pro-child culture in the community in order to safeguard children's interests and well-being.

Participants generally supported to enhance residential support services or foster care service, in particular for children with special needs, to cater for the increase in service needs after the implementation of MRR. More resources should be deployed to strengthen the manpower support of FCPSUs to cope with the unprecedented surge of caseload.

To provide more support services as a preventive measure to high risk families, such as families with children with special needs, ethnic minority families, cross-border families, deprived families, and families with parents addicted to drugs and alcohol, to minimise the risk of child abuse.

Some participants commented that the multi-disciplinary case conference (MDCC) lacked authority to effectively enforce welfare plans of the children victims. Suitable support services and timely follow-up should be offered to the children and their families to ensure that the recommendations of MDCC are strictly followed up. Consideration might be given to empower MDCC to mandate the parents/guardians to attend consultation and rehabilitation sessions.

In addition to the professions and sectors subject to MRR, other stakeholders, including parents and children should be engaged to share their views on MRR.

A database on suspected child abuse cases reported under MRR is suggested to facilitate policy review and formulation, as well as provision of training to relevant professions. The data of the children concerned could be shared with schools to ensure the provision of suitable support services to them. Periodical reports on the data collected might be published for public access.