Background: Registered nurses are well-placed to recognise and respond to child maltreatment, but national data has illustrated that they are not reporting as frequently as other professions. While several factors may impact a nurse’s decision to report suspected child maltreatment, it is consistently identified in the literature that insufficient knowledge and confidence are factors that inhibit reporting.

Aims: To examine the literature to determine if pre-service nursing education has a role in addressing barriers to making mandatory reports for child maltreatment.

Method: A narrative review of the literature investigating “is pre-service education preparing registered nurses for their role in child protection and mandatory reporting of child maltreatment?”

Results: Nurses need opportunities to examine their attitudes and preconceptions around child maltreatment as well as structured education around the signs and symptoms and the reporting process to feel confident about mandatory reporting. While these opportunities are not currently being delivered in a pre-service setting, this would be ideal to facilitate the above requirements.

Conclusions: Studies around nursing education for mandatory reporting show that it is largely delivered as in-service education. While high-quality in-service training may help address the attitudes of nurses and develop critical thinking skills, RNs’ in-service training experiences have been reported as inadequate. Pre-service education is structured and pedagogically sound and can offer opportunities to address attitudes. Other advantages include the fact that it starts to build knowledge and skills early in a nurse’s career, offers the opportunity to standardise the curriculum, and removes barriers to access. Implementing this change to how education about child maltreatment and mandatory reporting is delivered to nurses can increase mandatory reporting and lead to improved outcomes for children suffering maltreatment.

Implications for children and families: I want to find out what we can do to help nurses keep you and your friends safe from harm.

Implications for practitioners: This research aims to drive change to how education about mandatory reporting of child maltreatment is delivered to nurses and reduce barriers that prevent nurses from making reports.

Key words: children’s voices, families’ voices, professionals’ voices, communication, community services, education, qualitative methods, review, vulnerable communities, well-being, workforce

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities