Mandated supporting

Mandated reporters are professionals who are required to report suspected child abuse and maltreatment to Child Protective Services (CPS). Training for mandated reporters creates the false conception that reporting to CPS is the best way to ensure child safety and fails to explain the harms that families experience as a result of a CPS report. Research has shown that CPS investigations alone can do immediate and long-lasting psychological harm to children–and for many families, a report can result in permanent family separation.

In collaboration with social work students, advocates, and other experts, Just Making A Change for Families, better known as JMACforFamilies, created a curriculum to transform mandated reporting to “mandated supporting.” This curriculum offers alternative approaches to ensuring child welfare, including providing families with resources and community support.

This mandated supporting framework seeks to center families through equitable, harm reductionist, and anti-racist practices, while divesting from systems of surveillance and punishment.