The Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy and DCYF have developed an updated training course to help mandated reporters understand their responsibilities and respond to families with greater confidence and care.
This is the official mandated reporter training developed by DCYF and the Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy. It reflects current state guidance and introduces a community support approach to mandated reporting. The training helps reporters understand when they must make a report and how to connect families with resources and supports when a report is not required.
The training is free, available online, and self-paced.
Take the Mandated Reporter training from the Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy
What mandated reporters will learn
The training will help mandated reporters:
- Understand their legal responsibilities as a mandated reporter
- Recognize signs of child maltreatment
- Distinguish child maltreatment from unmet family needs
- Understand how poverty and a lack of resources can affect families
- Recognize how assumptions, uncertainty and bias can affect reporting decisions
- Use a community support approach when a child protection report is not required
- Connect families with community resources and supports.
Report when required, support when possible
Keeping children safe is a shared responsibility. So is helping families access support before challenges become a crisis.
Families may face challenges such as housing instability, food insecurity or lack of child care. These circumstances can affect a child’s well-being, but they do not automatically mean a child is being maltreated.
A community support approach helps mandated reporters distinguish between situations that require a child protection report and situations where connecting a family to community-based support may better meet their needs. When there is reasonable cause to suspect child maltreatment, mandated reporters must report as required by law.
Most child protection reports involve concerns about neglect, and poverty and a lack of resources can contribute to circumstances affecting families and children. Understanding the difference between unmet needs and maltreatment can help reporters make informed decisions. Recognizing how uncertainty, assumptions and bias can affect reporting decisions can also help reduce unnecessary child protection involvement and connect families to support earlier.
Put the approach into practice
The training encourages mandated reporters to:
- Recognize signs that a child may be experiencing maltreatment
- Understand their legal responsibility and the circumstances affecting the family
- Support families by connecting them with resources when a child protection report is not required
- Report when there is reasonable cause to suspect child maltreatment, as required by law.
For employers and organizations
Organizations can help make this approach part of everyday practice by incorporating the official training into onboarding and professional development.
Employers can:
- Encourage or require staff to complete the updated training.
- Provide time for staff to complete the training.
- Include the training in onboarding and ongoing professional development.
- Share information about community resources available to families.
- Talk with staff about supporting families when a child protection report is not required.
- Reinforce that staff must report when required by law.
- Encourage or require staff to complete the updated training.
- Provide time for staff to complete the training.
- Include the training in onboarding and ongoing professional development.
- Share information about community resources available to families.
- Talk with staff about supporting families when a child protection report is not required.
- Reinforce that staff must report when required by law.
Take the Mandated Reporter training from the Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy
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