He had no idea that a ‘Christian’ clinic was regulated by the state. To him, it was no different than going to his priest, only he needed a legal record to take to the court.
He wanted to file a motion with the court to restrict visitation to the mother unless there was monitoring. He had no idea that CPS could be brought in. He had zero trust for CPS.
My take is that CPS is a necessary agency but they seem to be feared because they treat all parties as suspects and they end up taking over a child’s life away from both ‘bad’ parents even if one parent is responsible and not at fault.
IOW, CPS like a lot of government agencies have no means to temper a situation with best practices because if they get it wrong, they can be blamed, whereas going tyrannical is not as risky for them.
In some states, even pastors are required to report such abuse. The father needs to get back to reality and allow the process to complete its course. I'm astonished the father didn't report the abuse himself. Too many kids are killed by 'boyfriends'.
Sounds like he wants to eat his cake and have it too. He wants to use if for the state but not let them know his kid is being abused? He's dealing with court, he should use a lawyer. As for wanting to avoid "heightened conflict", that ship has already sailed. He should be more concerned with winning the conflict, not avoiding it, if his son is being abused. Ultimately that will mean CPS being involved. He should bite the bullet and lawyer up and let the lawyer contact CPS.
BTW, there's nothing to stop his son from reporting the abuse to officials.
“Margaret Graf, legal counsel for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told the participants that California is one of about 30 states with mandated reporting laws.
According to state law, mandated reporters are required to disclose to law enforcement or Child Protective Services whenever they, in their professional capacity, know of or observe a child they have a reasonable suspicion is the victim of abuse.
But there’s an exception. Clergy are not required to report knowledge of abuse if it was acquired during penitential communication, the law states, meaning the information was revealed when no other person was present and with the expectation that it would be kept in confidence.”
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/sd-me-clergy-notebook-20170429-story.html
“The Pennsylvania law regarding mandated reporting enumerates clergy as mandated reporters, however, it does uphold clergy-penitent confidentiality privileges in pastoral communications (i.e. in counseling sessions and the confessional booth). Practically, this means that if a member of the clergy suspects a child is being abused he is mandated to report it, but if a member of his congregation confesses to abusing a child in a counseling session where a reasonable assumption of privacy is present, that clergy is not mandated by law to report what he/she has been told. Only clergy and attorney’s are granted this confidentiality exception to the law.”
http://www.pachurchesadvocacy.org/index_files/Page2894.htm
“Every state has a child abuse reporting law that requires persons designated as “mandatory reporters” to report known or reasonably suspected incidents of child abuse. As Table 1 (see page 4) illustrates, ministers are mandatory reporters in many states, but some states exempt them from the reporting obligation if they learned of the abuse in the course of a conversation protected by the clergy-penitent privilege.”
https://www.churchlawandtax.com/cltr/2015/may-june/child-abuse-reporting-and-clergy-privilege.html
FWIW, I’ve never heard of needing a SSN to report. For most professionals, if you suspect, you are legally required to report any information that might help in addressing the abuse.