Thanks to everyone for gathering with me today to talk about the topic of Mandated Reporting for SLPs. The course objectives are that you will be able to explain the differences between child abuse/neglect and elder abuse/neglect; to define the concepts of family, designated caregiver and mandated reporter related to child and elder abuse neglect laws; to list three options for accessing additional resources related to state-specific child and elder abuse/neglect policies; to list three critical reasons to follow through with mandated reporting laws; to define the dual layers to the concept of institutional responsibility, related to child and elder abuse/neglect laws; and to explain three or more potential obstacles to mandated reporting, and ways to avoid those obstacles.
I am used to and enjoy speaking on very positive topics; topics that are a bit more fun and dynamic and exciting and motivating. It does fall upon me, as one of my responsibilities in working with our graduate students and clinical instructors in our clinic and off-campus, to cover some less positive topics. I must instruct and orient people to universal precautions, first aid, HIPAA, code of ethics, and topics like mandated reporting. In the past couple of years we have become more proactive in terms of educating our graduate students and making sure our clinical supervisors have an awareness of mandated reporting, because it is very important. Some of the agenda items are more related to the legal aspects of mandated reporting, and then a few of them are really the way I am trying to make this very customized to speech-language pathologists. If there is anyone in our audience today that is in a related profession, it will speak to you as well.
