PII S0145-2134(98)00047-7 BRIEF COMMUNICATION CHILD ABUSE REPORTING: CLERGY PERCEPTIONS DANIEL H. GROSSOEHME Director of Pastoral Care, Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron, Akron, OH, USA Key Words—Abuse, Children, Clergy, Law. INTRODUCTION AMERICAN CLERGY HAVE tremendous entree into families’ lives and have frequent contact with children. The 143 clergy who participated in this survey touch the lives, at some level, of 23,841 children. This level of contact that clergy have with children intuitively suggests that clergy are in a prime position to observe and report abuse and neglect. In the United States, clergy are usually considered, at least by some professional disciplines, to be mandatory reporters of the reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect. Fortune (1988) outlines a theological basis for the duty to report. This study explored clergy awareness of some of the issues involved with reporting child abuse. These issues include awareness of the law, and the extent to which suspicions are actually reported. Information is gained by different means, which carry different levels of obligation of confidentiality. Do clergy distinguish between these levels? Finally, have clergy received any training in the recognition and reporting of abuse, and what was the background of the presenter of such training? A literature review using PsychInfo and MedLine was conducted which produced no relevant articles addressing the topic of clergy beliefs and practice concerning reporting suspected abuse. The present study was then developed to understand the level of awareness of clergy about these issues, and to share clergy perceptions with those other professionals who look to clergy as potential reporters of abuse and neglect. METHOD The study was conducted by mailing a survey to the 435 congregations on the pastoral care department’s mailing list, which are all congregations within the same county as the Hospital for which a mailing address can be obtained. The surveys were addressed to the primary clergyperson Received for publication June 9, 1997; final revision received November 10, 1997; accepted November 20, 1997. Reprint requests should be addressed to The Reverend Daniel H. Grossoehme, Pastoral Care, Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron, 1 Perkins Square, Akron, OH 44308 –1062. Pergamon Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 22, No. 7, pp. 743–747, 1998 Copyright © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0145-2134/98 $19.00 + .00 743