Those required, by law, to report include doctors, surgeons, medical examiners, coroners, dentists, osteopaths, optometrists, chiropractors, podiatrists, nurses, school teachers and officials, law enforcement officials, pharmacists, social workers, day care workers or employees, and mental health professionals. Also required to report are persons called upon to render aid or medical assistance to any child when the child is known or suspected to be a victim of abuse or neglect. Certainty is not required. In most instances, the only way you could be absolutely certain that a child had been abused or neglected would be if the parent or other person admitted it. All that is required is a reasonable suspicion that a child is a victim of abuse or neglect.
Child abuse is a community problem.
You should make your report to your chief of police or sheriff, or to the Department of Human Resources. If you are among those persons required to report child abuse and neglect and you learn of a child whose condition or injuries are not reasonably explainable as accidental, or if you are called on to treat such injuries, you must report immediately by telephone or in person. The law also requires you to follow your oral report with a written one. The Department of Human Resources has a form for your written report. Abused children need protection.