What should I do if I suspect a student is being abused?
If you're an administrator, follow your organization's policies and your state's reporting laws. You want to , of course, isolate the child from others and talk with them privately. You also need to get some information but do not launch an investigation. Don't get into detail that may be problematic in court later. Notify law enforcement officials, other government agencies as required and appropriate for your state and your jurisdiction. Make sure that your staff understand what their obligations are. If you are a support staff, such as a teacher, a receptionist, or a school nutrition employee, make sure you are aware of what your school's system or your school's policies are and the laws that are typically posted in your policy manuals. Make sure you are aware of that, so one day if you encounter this situation, you can act appropriately, because you can hinder the investigative process, and you can deny a child help, if we take the wrong actions. One of the ones we have seen most commonly, although it's getting to be much more rare these days, is where we try to become the police investigator, and we go too far down that path of asking questions. Once we have an allegation, we notify those who are under our state's laws, and our district's or organization's policies set forth to investigate those, and then we assist them.
