Thanks to everybody who took the time to respond to this posting.
There was a great divergence of opinion in the discussion. Most of you were
concerned about the risks to the child and thought you probably should
report the case to social services. There were less opinions about divulging
case details to social services, probably because it is an even trickier
issue.
To my mind there are some other issues that did not come up in the
discussion.
1. The risks to the child are not clear. While most child abuse cases seem
to indicate violence between adults, it is not clear that every child who
has parents who are violent to each other is at risk of physical violence.
(Though it must be awful for the kids to see problems between parents)
2. Would reporting this to social services reduce the chances of the mother
and other adult victims disclosing domestic violence? There is a real
problem encouraging victims to disclose and I wonder whether reporting might
prolong abuse for people trapped in abusive relationships.
If anyone missed the original post I have cut and pasted the original below
I wonder if I could canvas the list's opinions on the following scenario.
A women attends after being assaulted by her husband. You find that she has
small children at home. You ask her if the children are at risk of violence.
She says not. You know that there is an increased risk of violence to her
children because she has been assaulted. After appropriate advice she is
discharged home. She declines to involve the police.
1. Should you inform social services about the risk to the child?
You decide to inform social services about the risk to the child. Social
services 'phone back and want to know about the case and the mother's
presenting complaint. You know that you cannot give information about a
patient to an outside agency without that patient's consent except in
exceptional circumstances. This woman has capacity. The woman refuses to
give consent for release of information.
2. Is it appropriate to overide her consent and give information to Social
services?
I would be very interested to know what the list thinks about this.
Adrian
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