Mandatory Child Abuse Reporting laws continue to require attention by Nonprofit and Churches

Nonprofit and Church Legal Trends - Free Edition - July August 2008 (free edition)

Each of the fifty states has enacted a statute requiring those classified as mandatory reporters to report known or reasonable known incidents of child abuse to authorities. In some states, ministers are mandatory reporters, and in a few states, these mandatory reporter ministers can be held civilly liable by the abused child for their failure to report.

Though some states exempt ministers from reporting child abuse if they learned of it through conversation protected by the clergy-penitent privilege, some ministers may face criminal and civil liability for failing to report the child abuse, even if of they learned about it during what would normally be a protected conversation.