Over the past several years, increasing public emphasis on preventing child maltreatment has resulted in substantial changes to Florida's child abuse and neglect central registry. Many of these recent changes, aimed at preventing child maltreatment, have resulted in over one million false, unsubstantiated, and inconclusive reports of child abuse and neglect within the last decade. While the information held in reports may be useful for identifying and preventing potential child abuse or neglect, due process concerns have been raised with regards to the process of placing a person's name in a report without providing a hearing for challenging or removing inaccurate information. Focusing on Florida law, this research concentrates on: 1) the child maltreatment reporting process, 2) the procedures for maintaining reports, and 3) the accessibility of these reports in order to determine whether due process constitutional rights are protected under Florida's child abuse and neglect reporting laws. The intent of this thesis is to analyze the occurrence of unsubstantiated cases of child maltreatment, incidences of false reporting, and legal remedies available for those wrongfully accused of abusing or neglecting a child. Through the analysis of case law, federal and state statutes, available statistics, child abuse resources, and personal interviews with members of the Florida Legislature, evidence shows that due process constitutional rights are not protected under Florida's child abuse and neglect reporting laws. By raising awareness of the areas of child protection that require legal re-evaluation, this thesis aims to discover the balance between protecting children from harm and protecting adults from the severe ramifications resulting from false and improper allegations of child abuse and neglect.

This thesis focuses on the skills necessary to detect children being at risk from the adults in their surroundings based on the signals that the children manifest. The specific signs are described in the theoretical part, for example, different child expressions (on psychological, physical or behavioural level etc.) which can accompany risk exposure. The thesis also focuses on analysis of different environments in which these signals can be detected (family, school, medical examination etc.). Risk factors of children being exposed to danger in their own families are also analysed. Knowledge of these factors can facilitate the detection by surrounding people. The empirical part examines the signals most frequently used for the detection of children at risk by the adults in their proximity, as well as signs which don't get much attention (the adults are unable to perceive those signals, or they don't consider them as important). This analysis uses the data from "Children Crisis Center" (Dětské krizové centrum). Quantitative content analysis was used for the data survey. The quantity of signals registered by the family carers was compared to the quantity of signals only discovered by psychological examination. The conclusion reached by this analysis suggests, that family carers are not yet very...

博士(社会福祉学) / Doctor of Philosophy in Social Welfare / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University