Nurse abuses own child

[Marvie]

I have not seen any forums related to this and seem to still have more questions than solid answers, so I post this for all of you woderful people to read and comment on. I am hoping to get some type of clarification for knowledge sake. For an example, I will use this senario- An RN who has a child. This said child one day decided to report to someone that the mom(RN) has been abusing and sexually inapproriatly touching this child for years. This child decided to place themself in a potentially dangerous situation than to continue to take the abuse...like jumping out of a moving car to get away from being punched in the face...). Child is taken to ER at the facility where mom(RN) works but not in the ER, child requires many stitches and after police are called by ER staff, goes to foster care protection. Situation then changes to child going to live with dad and dad being awarded custody of child. Mom(RN) then decides to refuse to let child have any of their clothes, music, books, bike...etc and continues to verbally place threatening limits on child (ie. example- I wouldn't keep all your stuff away from you if you hadn't...fill in the blank, it's all your fault anyway). So now, child is away from mom(RN) and tells dad about him waking up in the middle of the night with mom(RN) laying in twin bed with her hand in child's pants caressing privates. Child also stated that mom(RN) used to always give kisses that resulted in dark red hickys on child. So, if you were listening to this story...what would your thoughts be and what actions would you try to do? Keep in mind this mom is an RN and is in a position of teaching nursing students. Thanks so much for any input.

[llg, PhD, RN]

I'm confused. If the child went to fostercare and custody was changed to the father, the authorities are already involved. How did the mother stay out of prison?

That was my question. I understand that the OP is trying not to give any identifying information, etc., but there is some necessary information missing in the original post. It seems the authorities are already involved. The legal system needs to be allowed to take its actions. There is no need to "do anything" if the legal process is proceding.

Is that not happening?

If the legal wheels are turning ... then the accused is entitled to a fair trial, etc. The accused has certain rights and should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

... and ... What is the OP's role in this situation? Is she directly involved in the care of this child? Is she an outside observer who may not have all of the information? Is she a family member? a friend of the family? etc. Perhaps the government agencies are already taking all the appropriate actions and the individuals are already getting the help they need. Perhaps they don't need the OP to do anything.

Yes. If the accused RN is guilty, she should be punished. But that is a matter for the authorities. Once the authorities are involved ... then the "unconnected observers" should not take matters into their own hands. So ... what is the OP's role/connection to this situation?

[Ms Kylee]

Aren't all reports of child abuse confidential? And if so. how did this information get out?

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

I think the original post sounds bizarre and I don't know how it's really related to nursing actually, other than that the Mom is an RN. It just sounds like gossip to me.

I'm in the MYOB camp.

[RN BSN 2009]

Judging the breadth of information on this post it would be very easy for someone to identify the perpetrator from it.

[justme1972]

Any Social Worker will tell you: Even the most horribly abused child will still want to go back to their parents.

The material things that child has lost, can all be replaced, and in time, the child will forget about them.

The child needs counseling, and the nurse needs to be in Jail and lose their license.

People like that don't deserve to live.

[elkpark]

I'm confused. If the child went to fostercare and custody was changed to the father, the authorities are already involved. How did the mother stay out of prison?

I've worked in child psych, and with CPS personnel in a few different states, for many years. The immediate concern is to remove the child from an apparently dangerous/harmful situation. Once that is done (in this case, the child removed from the mother's custody and placed with the father), there is no rush to pursue legal charges. There is no question/possibility, even, of charging the alleged offender until CPS has completed its investigation and made a formal determination that abuse did occur -- that can take quite a while by itself. Anyone involved in prosecuting people will tell you (this is, at least, part of why the justice system appears to move so very slowly) that they only "get one bite of the apple" -- if they rush to trial, and lose the case because they were not as well prepared as they could have been, the principal of "double jeopardy" applies and the person can't be tried again -- so they want to take their time to gather evidence, identify and prepare witnesses, etc., to be as sure as they can be that they're going to be successful in court. In my experience, prosecutors have been extremely slow and careful about actually bringing cases to trial, because they want to be sure they're really going to be able to get the person convicted when the time comes. Children are notoriously poor witnesses in these cases, for a wide range of reasons, so prosecutors want to have as much other evidence as possible, to avoid it simply being a matter of the child's word against the accused offender's. Often, they purposely let time pass so the child/victim can be seen over time in therapy so that the therapist can be called to testify and the therapy records can be entered as evidence in court. These cases are v. complicated to try, and v. challenging to win -- and every time you accuse/charge someone and end up losing in court, it publicly damages the reputation and credibility of both CPS and the prosecutor's office -- so everyone involved on the prosecution side moves slowly and carefully.

That certainly does not mean that justice won't, eventually, be served!

[banditrn]

yeah, I would like to know this myself. Apparently dfcs was involved but I dont know if they reported her to the nursing boards.

I don't know about this case, but in some cases, social services is a joke! My son and his wife had, as a foster child, a little girl that the police found kept locked in a cage. Nothing was ever done to the mother.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

report this to law enforcement...As a mandated reporter you are placing your license at risk by not reporting...

[Marvie]

actually rude person, i do have a role in this. And what you are saying is that nurses need to butt out of child abuse situations because the abuser is a nurse? I think that you need to rethhink your stance.

[Marvie]

The child refuses to go back to the mom, the stuff is things the child is requesting because it is the childs stuff. The child is getting counseling and does not want any contact with mom.

Any Social Worker will tell you: Even the most horribly abused child will still want to go back to their parents.

The material things that child has lost, can all be replaced, and in time, the child will forget about them.

The child needs counseling, and the nurse needs to be in Jail and lose their license.

People like that don't deserve to live.

[Marvie]

I doubt this considering that hundreds of thousands of abuse cases go on everyday and the "situation" has nothing that can point fingers to a specific individual.

Judging the breadth of information on this post it would be very easy for someone to identify the perpetrator from it.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

actually rude person, i do have a role in this. And what you are saying is that nurses need to butt out of child abuse situations because the abuser is a nurse? I think that you need to rethhink your stance.

Who are you calling "rude person", I don't think anyone here has that as a user name.