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The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau launched a partnership with the Boston Medical Center in April to educate medical residents at the hospital about their legal responsibilities as mandated reporters of child abuse.
The project, started by Harvard Law School student legal aid volunteers, aims to minimize the number of families reported in error for abuse or neglect to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families by mandatory reporters.
HLAB Clinical Fellow Erin M. Hegarty, who is leading the initiative, said that meritless claims of child abuse are overreported to the DCF, putting a strain on the agency’s time and resources.
HLS Clinical Instructor Elizabeth Tuttle Newman added that “it can take months, if not years, for parents to vindicate their right in court and have their children returned to their care” due to the high volume of cases in Massachusetts.
Hegarty and her team, including three clinical instructors — Tuttle Newman, Jacob Chin, and Stephanie E. Goldenhersh — partnered with Ariana Witkin, a member of the BMC’s Child Protection Team, to develop a training program about medical residents’ responsibilities as mandated reporters.
Tuttle Newman said she hopes the program will help with “educating practitioners about what the real harms of that system are on families.”
“The goal,” Hegarty added, “is to try and reduce the number of families who ever have to come in contact with the system.”
The first iteration of the training, which took place on April 30, walked medical professionals through the legal definitions and their obligations as reporters, made clear the instances that are not required to report, and focused on tangible skill-building to support families who have been reported to the DCF.
Hegarty said HLAB and the BMC are working on a more extensive training program for the upcoming year, which she added will be included as a required part of the BMC’s curriculum.
A BMC spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Goldenhersh, an HLS lecturer who worked alongside Hegarty on the collaboration, said she believes this training will be crucial to support Massachusetts families.
“What we’re doing is broadening how we support families, how we help parents maintain and improve safe familial settings for their children, often when they’re in difficult circumstances,” Goldenhersh said.
As the partnership is still fresh, Goldenhersh said HLAB will gather data on the training program’s impact on DCF reporting, adding that she hopes to see the BMC partnership expand into something bigger.
“It is an incredible beginning to a relationship. I’m really excited about watching it grow. I think it will inform the way that we develop different types of partnerships with stakeholders in the community,” she said.
