‘If You Thought It Was Going to Make a Difference, You'd Do It Straight Away’: School Staff Decisions to Report to Child Protection

ABSTRACT School staff make reports of concern to child protection agencies when they have concerns about child abuse and neglect. This decision has significant consequences for children, parents and communities, and for the data reports generate. Decisions occur within an ecological system context containing external, organisational, case and decision‐maker factors. This article reports on the findings of qualitative interviews with school staff in Aotearoa New Zealand regarding their reporting rationales. Findings show that judgement processes were embedded in the relationships participants had with parents and children. This improved information quality, the tailoring and acceptance of supports and understandings of risks and protective factors. Participants preferred to ‘support not report’ until a tipping point was reached. Perceptions of engagement, the availability of community support services and values influenced tipping points. Service availability differed by the socioeconomic position of the school, affecting threshold decisions. The threshold for report acceptance by Oranga Tamariki (statutory agency) was perceived as increasing, which, combined with bureaucratic problems, reduced confidence in reporting, created ethical conflicts and reduced reporting. A changing policy orientation towards family preservation has resulted in a reconstruction of the statutory role, but little increase of support service resources, nor a robust discussion about power, in the community sector. Implications for families, inequities, system design and research are discussed.