What to Do if You Suspect Child Abuse on a Job

Why this matters

You may be the only adult outside the family who sees inside that house this month. Teachers see the child at school; you see the home. Most of what looks odd on a call has an ordinary explanation, and treating every messy house as a crime scene would be wrong and harmful. But once or twice in a career, a tech sees something that is not ordinary, and the instinct is to either do nothing or do too much: ask the child questions, say something to the parent, take a photo. Both of those last moves can make things worse for the child and dangerous for you. This card covers what to do instead, what to write down, and the state law layer on who has to report.

This is not legal advice. The reporting duties below are state law, and your state's text is the one that binds you.

First: is anyone in danger right now

Two questions before anything else:

• Is a child in immediate danger? A child being hit, choked or threatened in front of you, a very young child alone and in distress, a child with an injury that needs a doctor now, or a child locked in somewhere. Call 911. You do not need certainty; you need a reasonable belief the danger is happening now.
• Are you in danger? If an adult is threatening you, or the situation is escalating, leave first. Say you need a part from the truck, walk out, get in, lock the doors, drive to a safe spot, and call from there. Do not stay to protect your tools or finish the job.

Do not physically intervene unless a child is being seriously hurt in front of you and there is no other way; even then, calling 911 and staying a witness is usually more useful than stepping between people. Physical intervention on domestic situations is covered in Recognizing Domestic Violence on a Call and Staying Safe.

What you might actually see

Abuse generally means physical, sexual or emotional harm by a caregiver; neglect means failing to provide food, shelter, supervision or medical care the child needs. You are not deciding which is happening. You are noticing.

Things that should register:

• Injuries in places children do not usually hurt themselves. Active kids bruise shins, knees, elbows and foreheads. Pediatricians use a screening rule known as TEN-4: bruising on the torso, ears or neck in a child under 4, or any bruising at all on an infant under 4 months, warrants a closer look. Patterned marks (the shape of a hand, a loop, a buckle) and burns with sharp edges are also flags.
• What the child does. Flinching at a raised hand or voice, fear of a particular adult, being unusually watchful, or saying something about being hurt.
• What the house lacks, for a child. No food over several visits, a child left alone who is too young to manage, no heat in winter with a child living there, or a child kept in one room. See related: Signs of Self-Neglect in a Customer Home, for the adult version.
• What the adult says. An explanation that does not fit the injury, or that changes.

What is not, on its own, a sign: poverty; a messy or cluttered house; a single bruise on a shin; a child home alone after school; and marks from some traditional healing practices, such as cupping (round marks from suction cups) or coining (linear marks from rubbing the skin), which can look alarming and are not abuse. You see one moment. Hold what you saw as an observation, not a conclusion.

What not to do, and why

If a child tells you something, listen. Let them say what they want to say without prompting. You can say, "Thank you for telling me. You did the right thing." Do not ask for details, and do not promise secrecy; you can say, "I might need to tell someone whose job is to help keep kids safe." The adult version of this conversation is in Responding When a Customer Discloses Abuse.

What to write down

Write it in the truck, as soon as you are clear of the house, while it is fresh. Facts only: what you saw, heard and were told, with times, and the exact words where you remember them. No conclusions, no labels, no guesses about who did what. Keep it on paper or in your own notes for the report; do not put it in the customer record, which the customer may be able to see and which other staff read. The owner decides with you where a copy is kept.

Date: 03/14  Time on site: 10:05 to 11:00
Address: [job address]  Job: water heater
Present: woman, said she is the mother; boy,
about 6; no one else seen.
10:15 boy in kitchen, short sleeves. Saw 4
oval marks in a row on left upper arm, dark
purple, each about the size of a fingertip.
1 on right upper arm, same color.
10:20 mother said "he falls off the bunk bed."
Boy looked at floor, said nothing.
10:40 boy flinched and stepped back when I put
the tool bag down near him.
No questions asked of boy. Nothing said to
mother about the marks.
Written 11:10, in truck.

Notice what the note leaves out: no "abuse," no "the mother did it," no opinion on the bunk bed story. A caseworker can use a note like this. A note that says "clearly abused by mother" is less useful and could be defamatory if it travels.

Who has to report: the state layer

The federal floor. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act requires states, as a condition of federal funding, to have laws for reporting child abuse and neglect. It does not itself make a private person a reporter. The duty comes from your state.

Every state names professions that must report, usually teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, police and child care workers. A plumber, an electrician or an HVAC tech is generally not on those lists.

A minority of states require any adult to report. Roughly 18 states and Puerto Rico, according to the federal Child Welfare Information Gateway's summary, require every person who suspects abuse or neglect to report it, with Texas, New Jersey and Indiana among them. In those states the duty is yours personally, it applies on the job like anywhere else, and failing to report can itself be a crime (in Texas it is a criminal offense under the Family Code). Check your own state's rule on the Gateway's state-by-state summary; it is updated as laws change.

The standard is suspicion, not proof. State laws use phrases like "reasonable cause to believe" or "reason to suspect." You do not have to be sure, and you are not expected to investigate.

Good-faith reports are protected. Every state gives immunity from civil and criminal liability to a person who reports in good faith, even if the report turns out to be unfounded. Most states keep the reporter's identity confidential from the family, and many accept anonymous reports from people who are not mandated reporters.

Telling your boss is not reporting, in most states. Where you are a required reporter, the duty is to report to the state agency or police, and passing it up the chain does not discharge it. A shop policy that says "tell the owner and let them decide" is wrong in a universal-reporting state. The right policy is "report, and tell the owner you did."

Where you are not required to report, you may still report, and the same protections for good faith apply.

How to report

• Immediate danger: 911.
• Otherwise: your state's child protective services hotline, sometimes called a child abuse reporting line. Search "[your state] report child abuse" for the number, and save it in your phone now rather than looking for it on the day.
• If you are not sure whether to report, or cannot find the number: the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, 1-800-422-4453, has counselors around the clock. It does not take reports itself, but it can talk through what you saw and connect you to the right state line.

When you call, read from your note. Expect to be asked for the address, what you saw, the child's approximate age, and the adults present. You will usually not be told what happens next. That is normal, not a sign the report was ignored.

A worked example: the same note in two states

The note above is from a real-shaped call. The tech was on site from 10:05 to 11:00 and wrote the note at 11:10.

Is there immediate danger? The tech's judgment: the marks looked days old, the boy was not hurt in a way needing care right then, and nobody was being hurt in front of him. Not a 911 call. If the boy had said "she hits me" or had been bleeding, it would have been.

In Texas, where any person who believes a child has been abused must report, the tech is a required reporter. A row of fingertip-sized marks on one upper arm and a matching mark on the other, which is the pattern a hard grip leaves, on a 6-year-old, an explanation (a fall from a bunk bed) that does not fit that pattern, and the flinch together are "reason to believe." He calls the state's abuse hotline at 11:25, reads the note, answers questions for about 15 minutes, and gets a report number. At 12:00 he tells the owner he has reported and gives her the report number, not the note's contents. The owner's only job is to support him and keep the next tech on that account from going in blind, which she does with a neutral record entry. See related: Writing a Safety Flag on a Customer Record Without Defaming Them.

In a state without universal reporting, nothing in the facts changes, and the tech is not legally required to report. He may, with the same good-faith immunity. The shop's policy should not make the decision harder: a tech who wants to report should be told to go ahead. Most of the difference between the two states is whether not reporting carries a penalty, not whether reporting is the right call.

What would have changed his call: if the only observation had been a bruise on the boy's shin and a messy kitchen, there would have been nothing to report. If the marks had been evenly spaced circles a couple of inches across on the boy's back, and the mother had mentioned cupping without being asked, that would point to a healing practice, not injury. The note would still be worth keeping, but a report on that alone would be a stretch.

References

• Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, 42 U.S.C. 5106a
• Child Welfare Information Gateway (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), "Mandatory Reporters of Child Abuse and Neglect," state statute summaries
• Texas Family Code, Chapter 261, reporting of child abuse or neglect
• Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, 1-800-422-4453
• See related: What a Tech Can and Cannot Do About a Welfare Concern