MANDATED REPORTING OBLIGATIONS WHEN 
A SURVIVOR HAS A DISABILITY 
October 17, 2017, 2:00 P.M. ET 


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Test test test test. 
>> Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our webinar today. I'm Celia Flinn with the center on 
victimization and safety at the Vera Institute of Justice.
I would like to welcome you to today's webinar: You 
report? Everyone reports? Mandated reporting obligations when a survivor has a disability -- where we will be discussing how to best balance mandatory reporting obligations and safety and autonomy when a survivor has a disability. We are pleased to bring you this as part of our end abuse of people with disabilities webinar series.
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Let's begin.

The primary public policy response to the victimization of people with disabilities was the creation of mandatory reporting requirements, whereby service providers are sometimes required by the law in their state to report abuse or neglect to a state agency or oversight organization. These requirements are different in every state and may have an impact on how domestic and sexual violence and disability providers interact with the people that they serve. Today we will discuss the history of mandatory reporting law, how they can influence your service provision, and some best practices for ensuring that mandatory reporting is done in a safe way within your organization.

Our presents today are Sandra Harrell and Ashley Brompton. Sandra began her tenure with the Vera Institute of Justice in 2006. She is the associate director of the 
Vera Institute of Justice's center on victimization and 
safety and her work focuses on helping individuals,
organizations and communities across the country address violence against adults and children with disabilities. 


organizations and communities across the country addressviolence against adults and children with disabilities. 
She has delivered training on violence against women anddisabilities at multiple venues throughout the country,
co-authored records and coordinated round tables and 
meetings to expand the field. Ashley Brompton joined thecenter on victimization and safety in November 2016. Her 
personal experience as a sibling of a person withdisabilities fuels her goal of advocating on the behalf ofsuch a marginalized population. She has spent her careeradvocating on behalf of people with disabilities who areinvolved in the criminal justice system. Prior to joiningVera, Ashley was a criminal justice fellow at the Arc'snational center on criminal justice and disability whereshe worked on behalf of individuals with intellectual and/
or developmental disabilities who were in the criminaljustice system. Ashley has a juris doctor from wake forestuniversity of law and a bachelor's degree from politicalscience from Florida gulf coast university. I now turn it 
over to our presenters.
>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: This is Ashley. We are very excited totalk to you all about this topic today. This is somethingthat we continue to see coming up and so we thought thattalking to you all about it would be a great way to getthis conversation started. So the first thing I'm going totalk about are the goals that we want to accomplish today.
The one thing we are not going to accomplish today istelling every single one of you what the law is in yourstate. Unfortunately the laws are different everywhere.
And so what we've done is at the very end of the webinaryou will see a link right in the same pod with our surveylink, and that is a link to NAFTA's website and they keep adatabase of the laws in each state. So if you want to knowyour law after the webinar, that's the place to look.

What we are going to do in this webinar is make surethat participants are better able to explain the historyand rationale behind mandatory reporting requirements, tofind the relationship between privacy, confidentiality andmandatory reporting for adults with disabilities, anddevelop policies and practices to address mandatoryreporting that minimize any unintended consequences tovictims with disabilities that promote both autonomy andsafety. Let's get started. The development of mandatoryreporting of abuse for peoples with disabilities. Everystate in the U.S. has enacted laws that require certainprofessionals, sometimes by nature of their jobs, sometimesby nature of their licensure, to report incidents of abuseof people with disabilities who are often referred to asvulnerable adults or dependent adults. These laws are 
often distinct from other mandatory reporting requirements,
specifically those that impact older people or children,
but not always. In many states you will see that the lawsfor reporting abuse of older people are in the same law and 


but not always. In many states you will see that the lawsfor reporting abuse of older people are in the same law andhave the same rules as the laws around the mandatoryreporting for vulnerable populations. But it's importantto note like I every said, every state's laws aredifferent. And it really is important that yourorganization looks up what your state's laws are and whatyou need to know for your location and your operation.

So a little about the history of mandatory reporting.
It really began exclusively as a way to protect olderindividuals, age 60 or over, who people thought wereconsidered vulnerable, wouldn't necessarily report if itwas for instance a child who was abusing them. Maybeconsidered more vulnerable. Then in the 1970s there were 
just a handful of horrific cases of abuse of people withdisabilities who were living in institutional settings.
The most famous of which was willow brook state school in 
Staten Island, New York. When that Geraldo Rivera did the 
expose, it exposed a ton of abuse that was not unknown topeople who were there. And it was just a pervasive cultureof abuse and it was not really being addressed. When this 
came to light, when the media started bringing this tolight, people were understandably outraged. It was a 
horrible situation. This led to dozens of lawsuits beingfiled. Regarding the conditions in the nation'sinstitutions which at time were much larger than they werenow, though we still have institutions. We've seen 
decreases and progress away from institutional settings.

The three really significant cases I won't go into thedetails about each of them. But you can see in this listthat as recently as 2013, the courts were still dealingwith this issue of abuse in institutional settings. So 
there was a real need for people to be able accountability,
to ensure that abuse wasn't mishandled or swept under therug or not even thought about as abuse. So this was this 
real outcry.

So the lawsuits led to a recognition of theconstitutional rights of people with disabilities living ininstitutional settings -- if someone is on the line andwhose phone is not muted, could you please mute your phone?
Thank you.

So surprisingly enough, until these lawsuits startedhappening, there was no real belief that people who wereliving in these institutional settings had constitutionalrights to be free from abuse and harm, which today youwould never think would be the case. But these 
constitutional rights also came with the need to includepeople with disabilities and mandatory reporting to ensurethat when abuse did occur there was accountability forthose abuses getting reporting, that people were gettingsome kind of justice. However, it was modeled largely onthe elder abuse laws that already existed. The difference 
being that for elder abuse there's a clear demarkation of 


the elder abuse laws that already existed.
being that for elder abuse there's a clear demarkation ofwhat an elder, quote unquote, is. An elder is an agedefinition. Usually age 60 or 65, in some states itvaries. However the definition for disability in thecontext of these laws is a lot looser and a lot less 
well-defined. Which leads to a lot of confusion about who 
exactly a vulnerable person is. And so this resulted in 
wide-ranging, very different state laws and expansivedefinitions of who was included in mandatory reporting. It 
involves a lot of unsurety about who reports when theyreport and who qualifies as a vulnerable person. And it 
changes over state lines. Sometimes it changes dependingwhether you're in a county-based system or a state-basedsystem. There's a lot of variation in how the laws are 
interpreted and applied from organization to organizationand even from individual to individual. 

So all of this leads to some tensions between the fact 
that victim services providers are there to provide healingservices to help a survivor regain control over their livesin a situation. At the same time that they have theselegal obligation that's they may have to abide by thatcould in some ways undermine that ultimate goal. So what 
do we do? How do we navigate these tensions withinmandatory reporting and ensure that people are safe andhave autonomy and there is accountability? So this is what 
mandatory reporting in theory is supposed to do. It's 
supposed to promote early identification of vulnerableadults who are being abused. So it's supposed to be a wayto make sure that abuse doesn't continue over long periodsof time with multiple people knowing and not reportinganything. And no one would argue that that is a bad thing.
It's intended to break the isolation that a survivor of 
abuse could feel. And let them know that they're notalone. The shame and secrecy and let them know theapproach by people who can help them and kind of create asafety net for them. It is designed to provide victimswith information about safety planning, legal and communityservices that can help them. It's designed to provide acontinuum of care for victims in coordination with other 
agencies and enhance effectiveness of interventions. And 
it's designed to create documentation of the maltreatmentthat may be critical to criminal or civil legal action. So 
all this is to say that mandatory reporting is supposed tocreate a America of support for a survivor and provideservices and information to empower and promote peeling forthat survivor -- healing for that survivor. It's not 
intended for anything other than that. But it doesn't 
always work out that way, but that's the ideal. So what we 
want to ask you, and we're going to bring the chat backsover right now, is to talk a little bit the mandatoryreporting that you do at your organization. Are these 
outcomes things that you see when you make a mandatory 


reporting that you do at your organization.
outcomes things that you see when you make a mandatoryreport? Are you encouraging these outcomes? And you cango ahead and type in the chat box and I'll read some ofyour responses out loud. We've got a ton of people typingso I'm going to give you a few minutes.

Some people are saying it really means they make amandatory report because it's their legal obligation, it'snot a solution to the problem. It's not really creating asafety network for people as it's intended to do. We've 
got some people saying that there are some positive thingsthat come out of it, but also a lot of negativeconsequences when they make a report. I'm just going tolet one more person. So a lot of people just don't haveunderstanding of when they need to report or what they needto report. There's a lot of good coordination, it lookslike coordination is going on at least in some statesaround connecting violence against women organizations orantiviolence organizations and disability service agenciesto make sure you're kind of accomplishing these goals ofproviding this network for people. So it looks like we 
have a variety of responses, depending on where you are,
what the laws are, and how familiar your organizations are.
Some of you are saying you just report to a lot ofdifferent people and you're confused about what to reportand when to report and who to report to. So all of this is 
really great information that you can see all of you livein different states, different places. You're all 
experiencing the same struggles around mandatory reporting.
So the question really becomes how do you balance thesetensions. How do you make sure that safety is guaranteedno matter what. But you're also protecting autonomy. And 
with that I'm going to turn it over to Sandra to talk aboutsome common challenges.
>> SANDRA HARRELL: Thanks so much, Ashley. And thanks 
everyone who participated in that brief discussion.
Because you reinforce a lot of what we hear as we work withcommunities all across the country. We hear from peoplewith disabilities that they want to reach out for help butthey're afraid what will happen if a report is made. We 
also hear a lot from people with disabilities that theyare, they're hearing bad stories, negative stores fromother people with disabilities through the grapevine andthat creates a chilling effect around people withdisabilities and they don't necessarily want to ask forhelp because they're afraid that something bad will happento them. For instance, one of the regular stories we hearabout is someone with a disability who is livingindependently in the community with the support of like apersonal care attendant, and then abuse is discoveredeither by a personal care attendant or a partner orsomebody who is employed or come into the home or help outwith other ways. And when APS responds, it is often in a 


somebody who is employed or come into the home or help outwith other ways. And when APS responds, it is often in away that either supplies support to the caregiver and thesituation, as opposed to the person with a disability, orthey take the person out of their independent livingsituation and place them into a more supported livingsituation. Neither of the situations work out really well.
That's one of those reoccurring stories and things that wehear from people across the country about what happens inthe aftermath of a mandatory report from people withdisabilities. We also hear from people with disabilitiesthat when a report is made, they want that report to go toas few people as possible. In other words, they don't wanteveryone in an organization to know what happened to them.
Oftentimes their experience is already so traumatizing andpersonal, they want help and they recognize that that madea response, they often say to us that they are wanting thatreport to actually go to as few people as possible.

And then the other thing is if a report is made, and Iheard this echoed a lot in the chat that Ashley moderated,
but that they want something to be -- they want somethingto happen because of the report. They expect action totake place. They don't want just want a report to go outthere into the ethos and no follow-up, no support provided.
There's no change in their life. They want something tohappen because of the report. And then certainly, and wehear this from people with disabilities and providers alikeis that everyone wants to know the outcome of the report.
They want to know what happened to the report once it gotmade. The other thing that we hear from victim servicesproviders is that mandatory reporting creates conflictsbetween their core values and their legal requirements. So 
for those of you who are victim service providers who arenot mandatory reporters, that's great for you. Many ofyour colleagues across the country don't have thatprotection. And they are subject to doing a mandatoryreport if they hear about abuse of a vulnerable adult. And 
what different services providers tell us is that this isproblematic in a number of ways. One is that there are 
many victim service providers who are working intrauma-informed ways. They recognize the ability tonarrate your experience and decide who hears your story ofabuse and survival is just fundamental to healing. And 
being able to control that narrative is just fundamental tobe able to heel from what you've experienced and that getstaken away from you. That right to control your narrativegets taken away.

The other thing that we hear from victim services isthat providers of abuse, particularly domestic violence.
They know their abuser. They know their abuser very welland they may be choosing not to go to the authoritiesbecause they recognize that doing so could actuallyescalate the behavior. And having the choice of being able 


because they recognize that doing so could actuallyescalate the behavior. And having the choice of being ableto decide whether or not authorities get brought in takenaway from them, actually creates an unsafe situation forthem. It actually could be taking away one strategy thatthey've been using to promote safety. Safety within thecontext of domestic violence, certainly. But we have to be 
able to survivors of domestic violence understand better 
than we do what is going to set their abuser off. And when 
we decide for them that the authorities are going to bebrought in, that could be incredibly dangerous,
particularly if the authorities come in, they ask a fewquestions and they never do anything about it. Then all of 
a sudden the abuser knows you've been talking and you're inthat home with the abuser. Very limited choices as to whatto do. So you can certainly you can read and go to a --
leave and go to a shelter if that shelter is accessible toyou. If that shelter has space. Transportation, there arelots of different things to think about here. And for the 
survivor, and when you take away the choice on whether ornot the authorities get brought in, it has a domino effect.

And then importantly certain types of crimes involvedynamics that make straightforward interventions dangerous.
If someone has had their identity stolen from some strangerwho knows nothing more about them than their life patternsother than -- it's terrible to get your identity stolen --
[background noise] -- incredibly terrible to happen to you.
If the stranger knows or how you get into the house, whereyou hide the key to the house, the emergency key to yourhouse, what your patterns are during the day, where youwork. Who your friends are. Where your parents live.
They know all that. So people who are experiencingdomestic violence, their abusers know all that. Whether 
their abuser is an intimate partner or personal careattendant, they know the very intimate details of thatperson's life which really can create a situation in whicha report can be even more dangerous for those survivors.

There is a request in the Q and A pod, if you couldjust make sure that your phone is muted. I think it's 
causing a bit of a distraction. So if you coulddouble-check that you have muted your phone.

So other challenges and this is what we heard and thisechoed in the chat is that mandatory reporters often don'tknow the legal requirements. In other words, they maybelieve that they are mandatory reporters of all abuse forany person with a disability, whereas their legalrequirements only have them reporting on a very narrowsliver of a population of people with disabilities. This 
is a common theme that we have seen in our work across the 
country is that there's an overinterpretation of yourmandatory reporting requirements not only by individualsbut by organizations and a lot of it has to do with theydon't want to be held with liability. Their concerned that 


but by organizations and a lot of it has to do with theydon't want to be held with liability. Their concerned that 
if they don't make the report in every single instance,
they could be held liable. So there's an 
over-interpretation and over reporting that is happening.

Often times with an organization, individuals workingwithin the organizations don't fully understand who issubject to mandatory reporting, whether they are mandatoryreporters, or who they are to report to. So it started 
goes up the chain. If way too many people find out becausepeople are asking questions. Got report from Sandra, whodo I talk about it. Tell me about what she told you and soI do that and okay, I think you should talk to ourimmediate supervisor. Who has to talk to their supervisorand they figure out we need to make a report to APS and thesheriff's department. By the time the report gets made, alot of people may have heard a different story. And then 
this is one that is another really common thing that wehear from providers across the country and for people withdisabilities and it's that the legal definition ofvulnerable is maybe way too broad to account for the rangeof competency that providers observe. If I were in personwith you, I would be showing you with my hands what I meanby this, but hopefully I'll be able to articulate it withmy words. But I think if you think about the entirepopulation of people with disabilities, certainly there issmall sliver who mandatory reporting is necessary in manycases because they do not have the ability to advocate ontheir own behalf, whether it be because they havesignificant physical disabilities that have caused them tobe dependent on others for everything, and therefore evenplacing a phone call would not be possible for themes as itwould be for someone else. Or they could have significantintellectual disabilities which would make it so that theyare not able to communicate at all. We work with a number 
of organizations with clients, the people that they workwith are non-verbal and those cases it may be necessary inthat very small sliver of the population of people withdisabilities. But there's an entire other part of thispopulation where people with disabilities are livingindependently. They're attending college, like Ashley'ssister. They are -- they have jobs or they may be livingin a group home but they're doing it with support, but notable to -- they're not unable to make decisions, importantdecisions about their lives. And they're making thosedecisions about their lives every single day why are wetaking this decision away from them. So that's one of the 
biggest tensions that we see -- I'm sorry?

So we also hear often that those organizations who areproviding supports to people with disabilities, you know,
whether that be vocational rehabilitation or assistive 
devices or just connections within their community becausethey have these relationships to people with disabilities, 


devices or just connections within their community becausethey have these relationships to people with disabilities,
they -- these relationships become trusting relationshipsand in those circumstances, the people that they'reserving, they share an experience of abuse, disclosethey're in an abusive relationship. Disclose somebody's atransportation provider has sexually abused them. And the 
immediate of having to make a mandatory report underminesthat relationship in a significant ways. And a couple ofother things we hear. We often hear that internal 
protocols within agencies can determine what gets reportedoutside of the agency. So all of the stuff that mandatoryreporting was designed to achieve, like breaking theisolation, early intervention, that only happens if theagency decides that that is going to happen. And so we 
hear that that's very problematic across the country aswell. And then the other thing is that we often hear thatwhen reports are made, they are done so independent of thesurvivor or the victim in the case. And that the providerslike people with disabilities want to know the outcome ofthe report but they don't know how to get the information.
So these are just some of the common challenges. But then,
and I talked a little about this already. But when youthink about mandatory reporting in the context specificallyof domestic violence, there are often dynamics, as Imentioned before, that may be dangerous for survivors. To 
understand this you've got to understand domestic violenceas a pattern of coercive pear and control. It is not onlythe physical violence. It is everything that the abuser isdoing to establish dominance over this individual. And 
they will use a pattern of behaviors in order to call intoquestion that their victim's sanity. They isolate theirvictims from any other means of support. They will callthem names. All of this is -- meant to is really meantto -- to make that victim feel they have no other option.
And everything that providers do that collude with thatpattern of coercive power and control, including takingchoice away from the victim, only help to cement thosebeliefs for the victim. And it's important to know toothat when you understand domestic violence and batteringbehavior as coercive power and control and the pattern ofbehavior that is strategically used, you have to abandonthis idea that he just flew off the rails or he just losthis temporary. Or the personal care attendant did thisbecause they were overwhelmed with the tasks of the day.
No. It's not a loss of control. It's rational,
instrumental behavior designed to achieve a particulargoal, which is to dominate the victim. To have completeand utter control over that victim. I talked a little 
about this different ways that that happens. This is so 
those of you who are not familiar with the domesticviolence world, we also refer to the power and controlwheel. And it is used regularly with survivors that help 


violence world, we also refer to the power and controlwheel. And it is used regularly with survivors that helpthem to see that the physical and sexual violence mayenforce power and control, but there are all sorts of otherdynamics that are happening in that relationship. We've 
worked with, as I mentioned, communities across the countryand one of those communities actually created a power andcontrol wheel that was more accessible to people withintellectual and cognitive disabilities and that is whatyou're seeing in front of you.

So within the context of domestic violence, things thatare important to understand is that those tactics ofcoercive power and control can really intensify when filinga report. When a report is made. For some of you it'snecessary, it's necessary where you have requirements youmay not have a choice other than do a report. But youshould keep in mind when you're making that report thatthese strategies, all those dynamics on the previous slide,
may intensify. And it can create, especially if the abuseis investigated and others come in, it can create a reallydangerous environment for the victim or survivor. And it 
can also really result in increased isolation andalienation for the victim. And this is all, we're sharingthis with you primarily so that you can hold it in yourhead as you're thinking later in the presentation about howyou can balance legal requirements to report with thesafety and autonomy of the survivor. So within the context 
of sexual violence, I mentioned this already, that alltrauma informed practices really work to restore theability to make decisions to the survivor of sexualassault. So you think about what sexual assault is. It's 
one of the most personal decisions that you can make beingtaken away from you. The choice, whether or not to beintimate with another person is stolen from you in thatmoment. And so the path to healing for survivors of sexualassault starts with them to be able to make decisions for 
themselves. To be able to wrestle that control back from 
whoever has taken it from them. As I've mentioned already,
when you take that, that avenue of healing, which isrestoring decision-making power to the survivor, you areremoving one important path to healing.

And with that we have a little video that we're goingto show you, some unintended consequences. And I'll justpress play, Ashley? Just a note for those watching thevideo, if you cannot hear it, if you are one of the fewpeople for instance that are connected by phone, you maynot be able to hear. It will be captioned and it will alsobe -- the audio will be picked up in the recording. And 
with that we can go ahead and press play.

With that I'm going to pass the mic back to Ashley totalk about balancing safety with legal requirements.
>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thanks, Sandra. We did see that a few 
people said that they just had a black screen. If that is 


>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Thanks, Sandra.
people said that they just had a black screen. If that is 
the case when we send out the recording if you just pressplay on that screen, you should be able to see the video atthat time. I apologize. It seems like Adobe Connect had a 
little bit of a technical issue with the video. But I hopethat at least some of you got to see it. So I think that 
video just talked a little about unintended consequenceseven with the very, very best of intentions. So then it 
becomes we know that these mandatory reporting requirementsare meant to do good and do do good many times and areneeded in some situations to ensure safety for people whowill otherwise could not necessarily ensure their ownsafety. But the question becomes how do service providerscomply with their mandatory reporting obligations andmaintain safety and autonomy that Sandra discussed in theprevious section and prior to that.

So mandatory reporting is a reality. This is the 
public policy approach that has been taken. There is an 
impulse to do internal investigations and keep issues inadministrative systems in our country rather than legal orcriminal justice systems. What tends to happen is whathappened with Willowbrook and other institutions likeWillowbrook where people are not reporting because theywant to handle it in-house but it's not actually beinghandled and no outsider is stepping in and saying they needto change this right now. And that is a problem. And so 
the response to that problem and also the desire to protectpeople with disabilities is the mandatory reportingpolicies. So these are sticking around. These are laws 
that we have on the books. The goal though is to ensurethat any necessaries and that you're making necessaryreports only. And that the reports you're making arekeeping safety and autonomy in mind and all of thosechallenges that Sandra went through in such great detail,
all of that needs to be kept in mind when you're makingreports. So we have some ideas around how to do this in a 
really beneficial way and make sure that you're kind ofmeeting those requirements and those goals that we set outat the beginning of what mandatory reporting is supposed todo. And the very first thing of course is disclose thatyou are a mandatory reporter and that you have mandatoryreporting requirements. Before a survivor tells youanything, let them know that you're a mandatory reporter.
Clearly explain what that means. So when it comes to 
serving people with a disability, this can mean a varietyof things. This can mean having the process in writing, sohaving some sort of maybe a question sheet that lays it allout in writing. It can include an pictorial guide so yousaw a few slides ago the great power and control wheel thatis completely pictorial for folks and things like that formandatory reporting that shows step by step what happensand who is involved. It can involve repeated explanations. 


mandatory reporting that shows step by step what happensand who is involved. It can involve repeated explanations.
It can involve saying things in different ways to make surethat there is an understanding. It can use smart or what 
was previously known as simple language or plain languageusually in conjunction with those pictures, to really justmake sure that there's a real understanding of what's goingon. And of course if a survivor is deaf, you woulddefinitely need an ASL interpreter who is qualified tointerpret on these issues. Another thing that might beuseful is a social story. So for example if a survivor hasautism, a social story can help kind of ground them in thisreal sort of tangible practice. In saying you know makingup a story Steve came in and reported this and we had to goto this agency and this is what we talked about with themand moving forward, just talking through those details andtelling the story can be really helpful in making it morereal and helping have a more practical understanding ofthings.

So all of that is to say that there are a lot of waysto go about talking about your mandatory reportingrequirements with people. The real thing is to make surethat you're doing it. To make sure that you're asking themquestions, to make sure that they're picking up on thereality of the situation. To let them know that this is 
what's going to happen if they talk to you about this. And 
make sure that they actually have a real understanding ofwhat that means. So that they are fully in control of thedecision to either talk or not talk. So service providersshould always be survivor centered, even when you know youhave to make a mandatory report. Once you inform thesurvivor that you're a mandatory reporter, allow thesurvivor to decide what he or she wants to do. Once youhave the conversations with the person, let them decidewhat they want to do. Do they want to tell you anyway andgive informed consent and then you will have to moveforward and make a report. Do they want to not disclose toyou because they don't feel comfortable making a report andthey fear those unintended consequences that Sandra wentover and that video had discussed as well. 

Do you try to find another person to disclose to withinyour agency who is not a mandatory reporter. Is there 
anyone in your organization who is not a mandatoryreporter? You see some organizations that partner withorganizations that do not have -- who have advocates whoare not mandatory reporters just to ensure that they havesomeone to talk to who come in but don't want to have 
mandatory reporting obligations. They want to be able tojust receive the healing services that they need andhopefully inform what's going to happen. So giving thesurvivor options to decide how they want to approach theissue is really the most crucial, crucial part of this ismaintaining the survivor's control through everything every 


issue is really the most crucial, crucial part of this ismaintaining the survivor's control through everything everystep of the way. Another way to do that is to provide theoption of letting that person, the survivor, make thereport themselves. And that really gives the survivor backcontrol of their own situation. And it says, you know, I'mchoosing to make this report. And I'm taking control ofthis situation. And this is me making this decision. And 
that can really restore a lot of the control that's beenlost. 

And then another important thing is to providefollow-up support and safety planning. If you go back tosort of the very beginning of this presentation when wetalked about the goals of mandatory reporting originally,
and for what the intended consequences are, one of the veryfirst things that we talked about was this need to create asafety net for folks to really connect them to all of theservices that they need. And in order to do that they needfollow-up support. They need safety planning so that whena report is made, it is done in a safe way and that thesurvivor is safe, their family is safe. If and when a 
report is made. Make sure that something is in place todeal with unintended consequences. If there is a concern 
that they might for example have to independently withassistance and it comes out that their personal careattendant has been abusing them and suddenly a report ismade, they might end up with no where to live if there's nowhere else for them to live in that group home, forexample. So it's about making sure that all of thoseconsequences that you might not otherwise see, that arereally hinging on the person's needs as a person with adisability are met as their needs as a survivor andincorporate all that into the safety planning that you do.

So what are some best practices for mandated reporting?
The first, the very first step is to look at your law.
Again, it's different in every state. Who is a mandatoryreporter for your agency. In some states like Florida, forexample, everyone is a mandatory reporter. In New York,
everyone who works at a disability organization is amandatory reporter. In other states, it's not the same.
So it really is, and this is usually really laid out veryclearly in the law that certain types of people or certainpeople who are licensed, for instance, licensed socialworkers, are mandatory reporters by licensure. So it 
really just depends on the state. So that's a very goodfirst step is who is our mandatory reporters. And then the 
flip side of that -- then the flip side of that, who is nota mandatory reporter. Who within your organization can bethe person who takes disclosures. That's a very good firststep to help survivors identify someone to talk to if theydon't want to disclose. 

The second thing going back to the law, identify thetype of abuse that triggers a report. Some of these laws 


 The second thing going back to the law, identify thetype of abuse that triggers a report. Some of these laws 
are very, very specific about what types of abuse actuallyrequire a report to be made. And if a report is notrequired to be made, then a lot of these situations whereyou're sort of balancing this need for safety and autonomyare not necessarily relevant, because if the person doesn'twant to make a report and it's not mandated that you make areport, you don't have to make a report. So it's importantto know what actually triggers a report each step of theway.

And then identify what the type of disability a personmust have to trigger a report. As we said very early on,
there are many different types of disabilities. People whohave physical disabilities may be completely cognitivelyable to know when or if they want to report something. And 
in some states it really depends on their cognitiveability. So it turns if someone who is just in awheelchair would not be considered a vulnerable person insome states. It really does depend on how their cognitivelevel functioning. In other states it's much more broad 
and it says a person with a disability. In those states 
it's much broader. Does your state include Deaf people,
Deaf survivors as vulnerable persons or not. That dependson your state and your organization. So determine all of 
these specific things that will talk about and think aboutin your agency so you know what you need to report and whenyou need to report it. And then who do you report to. Who 
does the immediate staff person report to if they seesomething that they need to report. Who does your agencyreport to. Do you have to file incident reports withinyour agency? Do you have to file incident reports withlicensing agencies? What are your requirements? It's 
extremely important that you know exactly what yourrequirements are, because you need to meet your legalobligations. And so knowing what those legal obligationsare is a good first step in being able to do that. Some 
more best practices. Collecting data. Know how youragency is reporting these things. What number of internal 
reports are you doing. How many times have supervisors orother agency staff made reports. Who is making the reportswithin your agency actually practically speaking. Is it 
managers? Is it line staff? All of that data is justreally helpful in knowing how your agency is approachingmandatory reporting and making sure that it's done in thesafe way. Really, the goal is to just kind of create thesesort of guard rails on the four corners so you don't falloff the edge. It's about creating this ability to staywithin the confines of what is necessary to report toprotect the survivor and protect the relationship that youhave with the survivor. Another thing to consider is theimplication of the violence against women actconfidentiality requirements. Something to note is that in 


implication of the violence against women actconfidentiality requirements. Something to note is that inthat law it does state that if you are required by statelaw to make a report, that is an exemption to the violenceagainst women act confidentiality requirement. However youare required to report only what is legally necessary. So 
to not report information that is not necessary. And 
again, knowing the familiar, being familiar with your statelaw is really the only way to know what is legallynecessary.

Educate your agency and your staff. Bring adultprotective services in if adult protective services is theorganization that is responsible for those mandatoryreports. If you have an independent agency likeMassachusetts or New York does, bring those people in totalk about what the requirements are in your state. And 
get your staff familiar with the process and the people whoare involved. All of that will make it a lot easier to not 
only actually have mandatory reports and make mandatoryreports, but to communicate what the requirements are toyour participants.

So have written policies and procedures aroundmandatory reporting. And you'll see in the next video thatwe show, we're going to talk about some best practices forcreating policies and procedures around mandatoryreporting. But it really is about communicating it withyour staff, communicating it with your, the people who useyour services. And letting everyone know. We've seen some 
great examples of this. We have agencies who do regulartrainings with the people that they serve and have reallygreat pictorial posters on the wall that talk about theprocess and participants are familiar that with the staffrequirements and there is a name and a contact person ifthey want to talk without having subject to the reportingrequirements. There are some agencies that just a lot ofresources into training their staff so staff is aware theseare complicated subjects and complicated requirements. So 
really boiling it down so that every single person thatworks for your agency is served by your agency knows whatthe laws are and knows what their obligations are. And not 
only what they are, but what they aren't. As Sandra said 
earlier, knowing what they do not need to report is just asimportant as knowing what they do need to report. And 
Sandra, do you have anything else you would like to addbefore we go to the last video on policies and procedures?
>> SANDRA HARRELL: I would just add that the ability tohave someone talk to someone who is not a mandated reportermay not be possible in your state. And so that's why it'sreally important for you to build relationships with yourdisability provider with one another. So you can sort ofbuild into the safety planning around the mandatory report,
accessibility features, disability informeddecision-making, et cetera. I guess we know that there are 


accessibility features, disability informeddecision-making, et cetera. I guess we know that there area few states in whichever single solitary person in thestate is a mandatory reporter of abuse in the lives ofvulnerable adults. And so while it is best practice to beable to refer to be to somebody, it may not be possible soyou should have a really solid plan for how you're going tosupport that person to be safe post the report.
>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Okay, great. And with that we'll go tothe next video. What we have discovered is that you needto press play on your end. If you're seeing a blackscreen, you go to the bottom of the black screen. If youhit play right now, you will watch the video along the sametime line that everyone is watching the video. Hopefullythis will help folks actually see the video.
>> Hello, is anyone on the line? Hello, is anyone still onthe line? 
>> Yes, we are still on the line. We're just going to giveeveryone a couple -- about another minute to finishwatching the video, if they haven't finished it. Peopleare on different times. 
>> Hello. I thought I heard someone come on when I washanging up.
>> Okay. We're still here. Okay. So if you didn't getthe chance to finish the video, you can go ahead and dothat when I send out the presentation and the recording aswell. We wanted to give everyone a chance to watch thevideo but on Adobe Connect the way it works, we all get thecontrol when we start the video and therefore when we 
finish the video. I hope that those videos are a littlehelpful in thinking through some of these issues and wereally appreciate the national clearinghouse those arevideos that were produced by then. Sandra, do you haveanything to add before we open it up for questions?
>> SANDRA HARRELL: I do want to let folks know that there 
was a request in the Q and A box that how to get adownloadable version of the power in control wheel so I puta link to that in this chat box that you should be able tosee. If you want to download that report, feel free toclick there it will bring you to our website and you'll beable to print download a PDF version of that resource.
Which is great. We love promoting it.
>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: And additionally there will be a linkin the follow-up e-mail that you get that has the recordingof this presentation and that will also take you to ourwebsite where you can download it. So this is' two 
options. If you forget to download it now, don't worry.
It will be in the follow-up e-mail. With that we can openit up for questions. I see we have a question. Celia, isit okay if I just go ahead and read them out?
>> Sure thing. I was getting unmuted.
>> So an adult with a physical disability or nointellectual disability was assaulted on a date. The date 


>> So an adult with a physical disability or nointellectual disability was assaulted on a date. The date 
has not or never been a care taker. Does the survivor 
loose the ability to seek services by virtue of the factthey have a disability. Again, that is really statedependent. If your state is a state that requires thatsimply says a person with the disability is considered avulnerable person, that might mean that you have to make areport if you are a mandatory reporter. Whether you are amandatory reporter or whoever the survivor is talking to isa mandatory reporter, whether that person meets thedefinition in the state of a vulnerable adult and whether 
that state only requires mandatory reporting in the caseswhen an abuse occurs in services which is the case in some 
states. So it's really hard to answer those specificquestions because they are so state dependent. What I 
would encourage you to do is on the very last slide of thispresentation today, there will be a link to the database oflaws. And I would encourage you all to read your state'slaw to find information on that because it varies so much. 
And what I would say, Sandra -- were you going to saysomething?
>> SANDRA HARRELL: Go ahead and finish your thought. I do 
want to add something.
>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Okay. What I would say is that thesurvivor is not going to lose the ability to seek serviceswith that reporting if there is someone around. They canstill seek services and hopefully the organizations willhave someone on staff who is not a mandatory reporter, evenif they do qualify maybe there's someone on staff who canhelp them. Sandra, go ahead and answer your thoughts.
>> SANDRA HARRELL: That was the point that I was going tomake is that you don't have to make a mandatory report toreceive services. There are millions of survivors of 
sexual assault without disabilities who can go to a rapecrisis program and get services to help them heal for that.
What is different with people with disabilities it's twoprong. Some of the crisis programs are not accessiblewhich might it harder for them to be able to get thoseservices and other part of it is some of those programs maybe mandatory reporters. So there's never nothing about thetype of crime that happened to someone should keep themfrom being able to report it to the police, report it toseek services for healing or to seek services from APS.
They could also go to APS and report this person if theyfelt they were not getting the redress they were lookingfor. 
>> ASHLEY BROMPTON: Okay great. The next question is do weneed to report on a suspicion or do we need exact proof.
know this is going to be unsatisfying when I say it dependson your state again, but it does depend on your state. In 
many states a reasonable suspicion is enough to require areport if you are a mandatory reporter. And what a 


many states a reasonable suspicion is enough to require areport if you are a mandatory reporter. And what a 
reasonable suspicion means is that you have some sort ofgrounds to expect that reportable abuse is occurring. So 
you don't need final proof in most cases. In fact I can 
say probably in the majority of places if not all of theplaces you do not need complete proof. You just need tohave some sort of a reasonable suspicion. There has to be 
some sort of basis for you to think that there is abuseoccurring.
>> And I would just add again, you know, these arequestions that are coming up that often come up like whatcan we report, how can we report. I would try to reframeyour thinking about what you should report, who you shouldreport on. Because having a suspicion of, for instance,
someone being abused, if they are nonverbal, they're notable to request help for themselves, absolutely that'ssomething that you would want to report. But if it's 
someone who is living independently in the community andyou just don't like their choices, that's not a good enoughreason to make a report if you don't have to.
>> Okay. And then we also had someone who kind of shared a 
story about how that person did make a report that theywork with. And went to court and the judge said there wasnot enough information to make the case and the client hadbeen drawing some images about what was happening and thecourt kind of failed to client and dropped the case and Ithink that is one of the fears people have when they'rereporting and something that can be an unintendedconsequence even when you have the best of intentions withreporting is that courts do not always take the expressionsof a person with a disability as being as credible as thosethat are made by people who do not have disabilities. And 
that can be really disempowering. That can make a personfeel really negatively to go through this whole process andgo to court and have it burn out because they're notbelieved. So that's a good point.
>> SANDRA HARRELL: And I will just add this is part of thereason that reporting to authorities isn't always somethingthat survivors want to do. Because I mean, this is --
cases are thrown out for sexual assault all the time,
whether the person has a disability or not. And it is justvery common in our culture that those cases don't make itall the way to court in the first place. And if that is 
the only avenue for redress that the person has or that weare talking to them about, you're going to have a lot ofdisappointed survivors. Because it is just a very commonphenomenon. It's not that I think that's it's okay or weshould be okay with that reality, but it is important totalk about the range of healing avenues instead of justfocusing on the criminal justice system. Because we know 
the criminal justice system is flawed and doesn't alwayswork out in the interest of the survivor. Celia, are there 


the criminal justice system is flawed and doesn't alwayswork out in the interest of the survivor. Celia, are thereany other questions?

>> It looks most of the questions but if anyone has anyother questions, feel free to follow up after thepresentation is over. I want to thank you again, Sandraand Ashley, and everyone for participating in today'swebinar: We would ask that you complete a brief evaluationof your experience of today's webinar which you can go bygoing to the link in the pod of your screen which says 
survey. Click on the name of the webinar and click browse 
to. We would really appreciate if you could take a fewminutes to share your thoughts with us so we can continueto work to meet your needs. Also, don't forget to registerfor our next webinar, one size does not fit all servingculturally diverse survivors with disabilities, which isscheduled for November 14, 2017, at 2:00 p.m. eastern time.
You can register by clicking the link in the PowerPoint.
The webinar materials including a PDF version of thePowerPoint as well as the record of attendance, are 
available in the files pod. And for those of you who areinterested in downloading the transcript of the webinar,
you can do so by going to the captioning pod at the bottomof the screen and clicking on the button that says save.
We will leave the webinar open for a few minutes to giveyou time to download this. Thank you again and have agreat afternoon.