DUTY OF CARE
A breach of your duty of care means you cause harm to a child or their family by your negligent acts or omissions.
Let’s look at some ways a failure to report abuse could be seen as negligent and could cause harm to both children and their families.
A failure to recognise and report child abuse can be a breach of your duty of care. Your failure to report is an omission which can cause harm to a child or their family.
In the below two examples a failure to recognise and report harm or risk of harm to a child is a breach of duty of care:
- a child tells you they’ve been sexually abused by their Uncle John who picks them up from Day Care every day, and you fail to report this and/or advise the child’s Parents – the Parents find out six months later after their child requires intensive therapy to deal with self esteem and anxiety issues and sue.
- You notice suspicious injuries on a child during the alternate weeks that he’s residing with his Mum, and you fail to report to authorities and/or his Father – the child ends up in hospital the following week with serious injuries caused by Mum and Dad sues.
You also have a duty to advise parents of the abuse in cases where they are not the perpetrators and can provide protection from further abuse. A failure to notify parents of suspected abuse can be a breach of duty of care.
In 2001, in a case called AB v State of Victoria, a student recovered damages from the Department of Education because her School failed to detect and notify authorities of her sexual abuse which was occurring at home. The court found that even though the girl had never told anyone at School about the abuse, there were indicators that should have given teachers a reasonable belief that abuse was occurring and they failed to report.