Child protection in schools: Advancing teachers from intuitive to rational thinking in child protection decision making

The number of notifications of child abuse is increasing rapidly so that, if the present trend continues, Australian child protection services will receive over half a million notifications of suspected child abuse in the year 2007, ten years hence. This trend has implications for teachers who contact children on a daily basis. Teachers have a duty of care for the children who are compelled to attend school, yet teachers currently have a poor record of reporting. The current preparation of Australian teachers for. participation in child protection is inconsistent with mandatory reporting requirements and inadequate for teachers' child protection role.\ud \ud It was assumed that the aim of child protection training should be to improve teachers' child protection decision making, consequently, the purpose of the present study was to illuminate and analyse preservice teachers' child protection decision making at the point of entry to their preservice course. In so doing, the study focused specifically on the nature of participants' knowledge, beliefs, perceptions and experiences likely to influence their child protection decisions.\ud \ud The literature was reviewed for the purpose of identifying existing child protection programs and factors known to inhibit or enhance teachers' decisions to report suspected abuse. Since the purpose of the study was to understand and illuminate participants' subjective knowledge, beliefs, perceptions, and experiences, and the likely influence of these factors on child protection decision making, an interpretive orientation was used. Data collection methods included the administration of questionaries, presentation of a videotaped child protection scenario as a stimulus to discussion, transcription and analysis of small group discussions, and a reflective activity.\ud \ud Findings indicated that preservice teachers' intuitive decision making was dependent primarily on their interpersonal perceptions of the stakeholders, their personal beliefs, and their past experiences which interacted with each other. Knowledge played only a minimal role. The findings of the study contribute to the child protection literature by linking the role of beliefs, perceptions, knowledge and experiences with teachers' decision making in relation to child protection.\ud \ud Robinson's (1993) Problem-Based Methodology was used to develop a child protection curriculum framework for use by teacher educators in preservice teacher education from the findings of the study. The findings illuminated how preservice teachers make child protection decisions at the point of entry to their preservice course.\ud \ud The study is significant in that it found that knowledge played a limited role in child protection decision making, suggesting that programs which aim to improve teachers' knowledge of definitions, signs and reporting procedures can be expected to be ineffective. On the other hand, programs which also consider the role of teachers' beliefs, experiences and perceptions are more likely to be effective.\ud \ud The findings imply that preservice child protection programs should include not only the skills necessary for child protection decision making, but also a metacognitive understanding of the decision making process in order to advance preservice teachers from intuitive to more rational bases of child protection decision making