Child welfare in Maine: Some lawmakers want to strengthen a law that prohibits doctors from thinking.

Child welfare in Maine: Some lawmakers want to strengthen a law that prohibits doctors from thinking.

It’s taken more than half a century but slowly, some people in family policing (a more accurate term than “child welfare”) are realizing that mandatory child abuse reporting laws were a huge mistake.  These laws force many professionals who deal with children, and, in some states, everyone, to report their slightest suspicion of whatever state law considers child abuse or neglect.  The research is clear: Mandatory reporting has backfired. It dri…