"Suspected Child Abuse Team"?

[mcs1505]

I'm doing a paper on child abuse cases being missed in the ER for my grad class and something I found was a team comprised of a specialized Dr., nurse, radiologist and social worker who are called on in times of suspected abuse. It sounds kind of like a code team, in a way.

I was wondering if any of you have anything like that in your ER and if you like the way it works?

[back2bRN]

Don't have one where I currently work, however at another facility we had brightly colored papers to insert in the permanent record for "suspicious" injuries. The neat thing was anyone could fill one out, it didn't mean a call to social services, just that there was a hmmmm about the injury, story or there was just something not right. Don't remember the form in detail, just that there was one and I thought it a wonderful idea

[BrnEyedGirl, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN]

I've never heard of such a "team". If child abuse is suspected hotline it and let the proper authorities investigate. I wonder what the point of this group is?

[Aneroo, LPN]

One of the hospitals I worked at had the "tedi bear team". I don't remember what tedi stood for, but they worked suspected abuse cases. It has a doctor, forensic nurse, child health (can't remember what they're called, but they provide age appropriate distractions and interventions to help the children cope with their illness/injury), social work, and the local police.

ETA- Child LIFE! I remembered it!

[Altra, BSN, RN]

I've never heard of such a "team". If child abuse is suspected hotline it and let the proper authorities investigate. I wonder what the point of this group is?

The point is to have a team with specialized training examine and interact with the patient and/or family, a team not distracted by other responsibilities in the ER. Better evidence collection, better interviewing of children (an extremely dicey prospect for those not trained to do it).

[mcs1505]

The point is to have a team with specialized training examine and interact with the patient and/or family, a team not distracted by other responsibilities in the ER. Better evidence collection, better interviewing of children (an extremely dicey prospect for those not trained to do it).

Exactly. And from what I've read the team also works very closely with law enforcement and children's services so they've developed relationships with people in these fields which assists with communication and ultimately leads to an earlier decision as to whether there was abuse, allowing earlier discharge of the patient (either to their parents or childrens services).

I thought it was a good idea, I just didn't know if anyone had seen it in practice or not.

[BrnEyedGirl, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN]

The point is to have a team with specialized training examine and interact with the patient and/or family, a team not distracted by other responsibilities in the ER. Better evidence collection, better interviewing of children (an extremely dicey prospect for those not trained to do it).

That makes sense now. I am actually on our SART (sexual assault response team) and that is the point, we are specially trained and the sexual assault is our only priority at that time.

[XB9S, BSN, MSN, EdD, RN, APN]

We have specialist nurses in child protection who are there to provide education and training to all hospital and community staff, they also follow up and provide advice if there are any concerns with paediatric patients in our hosptials