Child care advocates hope a major package of child abuse laws that took effect this week will prevent more children at risk from slipping through the cracks.
The new regulations, a result of the recommendations from the Pennsylvania Task Force on Child Protection that convened in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, expand the state’s definition of child abuse, clarify who is a mandatory reporter and an alleged perpetrator of such abuse, and modernizes record-keeping, among other changes.
Pennsylvania had been considered an outlier among states for having a high threshold for what constitutes child abuse and far fewer reports of such abuse, said Cathleen Palm, founder of The Center for Children’s Justice in Berks County.
“Sandusky was the tipping point, but Pennsylvania’s law/practices really left too many children unprotected from serious physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect for years,” she said.
The law combines 21 pieces of legislation, most of which took effect Wednesday. Among the key changes is what legally is considered abuse — one that Mary Carrasco, director of A Child’s Place at Mercy, considers most significant.
Stricter child abuse laws go into effect in Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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