After a year of review and discussion, the Maine Legislature has passed a Windham senator’s bill to require training for mandated reporters – people who, by law, are required to report abuse or suspected abuse of a child.

The bill now awaits Gov. Paul LePage’s signature.

While previous child abuse laws required anyone who comes in regular contact with children – such as teachers, doctors, social workers and nurses – to report signs of abuse, L.D. 622 “ensures that adults who work with children on a daily basis have up-to-date training on how to spot warning signs,” the bill’s sponsor, Bill Diamond, said.

Diamond, a Democrat, said the training would empower mandated reporters, allowing them to “protect more kids from abuse or neglect and spur more of the investigations that put adults who mistreat children behind bars.”

The bill passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate last week. The bill also received unanimous support from the Health and Human Services Committee, where Diamond said the bill spent a year in the vetting and review process.

“When you put a lot of work into a bill in the committee,” Diamond explained in a phone conversation, “it takes away most of the objections” that might be raised in the chamber.

The bill was introduced to the Legislature last year by Wilton residents Jan Wilson and her husband, Irving Faunce, as one of a series of three bills to “ensure fewer accidental deaths of children,” Wilson said.

Wilson testified in April 2015 in support of the bill. In her testimony, she told the committee of her grandson’s death, at 2 months old, caused by domestic abuse.

“Several (mandated) reporters who suspected abuse in the case of my grandson,” she said in a phone interview with the Lakes Region Weekly, did not report the abuse “because they did not have training and were not clear on what their responsibilities are.”

Another impetus for Wilson’s concern about child abuse stems from her 25-year history as a teacher. Wilson said as a teacher she was expected to be a mandated reporter, but never received training.

“I think that is true of a lot of mandatory reporters,” she said. “It was never clarified for them what that means or the responsibilities.”

According to Jim Martin, director of the Office of Child and Family Services for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, training in recognizing signs of child abuse was already available for mandated reporters through online and in-person programs. The law already states a penalty for mandated reporters who fail to report suspected child abuse, Martin said, but if the bill passes, mandated reporters will be required to complete the training once every four years.

Martin said the training is “meant to address the fact that mandatory reporters may not understand what that role means. The training will help them to recognize child abuse and know how to report it.”

Last spring, Martin sent a letter to the Health and Human Services Committee. At the time, he was neither for nor against the bill. He wrote that in 2013, his office investigated 8,757 reports of suspected abuse and/or neglect involving 12,366 children. About 70 percent of the reports were brought forth by mandated reporters.

Child abuse is very likely underreported, Martin said in a phone conversation.

Martin said that while the agency “supports the need to have mandatory reporters appropriately trained and knowledgeable in their role,” the bill has not specified how the requirement will be enforced.

“In some cases, it’s the employer who will have some role,” he said, adding that one of the challenges is to address how the training requirement will be enforced.

Wilson said she had mixed feelings about the bill becoming law. She “consider(s) the bill a good starting point,” she said, but hopes that eventually mandated reporters will have annual training.

“I think it’s terrific we have this,” she said. “I hope that once this is implemented people will begin to take training very seriously.”

Wilson said she and her husband had sought Diamond to sponsor the bill, and were “very grateful” to him “for shepherding the bill through the Legislature. He has a very strong history of defending the rights of children and caring about child abuse in Maine.”

Diamond spent 20 years as a teacher and principal in the Windham school system and in 2012 published a book, “The Evil and the Innocent,” which details the stories of child victims of sexual abuse. Earlier this year, Diamond also proposed L.D. 1477, a bill that would make it easier for women who become pregnant as the result of rape to sever the parental rights of their assailant.

Windham High School Principal Chris Howell said the school administration took interest in the mandated reporter bill, and has been “looking at our practices for DHHS referrals, and notification procedures internally when a report has been made to DHHS.”

Howell said the bill wouldn’t have a large impact on the school’s reporting procedures right away. The school already contacts the state “anytime we have concerns about a student, or that there may be signs of physical, social or emotional abuse, or abandonment.”

Howell said while internal communication regarding suspected child abuse is strong, “it’s always good to review your practices on referral processes and engaging any outside agency for when we have a student in need.”