Developing Ethical Guidelines for Safeguarding Children during Social Research
A working party of academics from both professional safeguarding backgrounds and research backgrounds developed and wrote ethical guidelines on safeguarding children in research on behalf of their faculty research ethics committee. The working party encountered a lack of useful precedents while developing the guidelines leading to a lengthy process of debate and consideration of the issues. This paper explores the various issues and dilemmas arising during this process, particularly the tension between safeguarding children from abuse and maintaining research confidentiality. One of the main areas of discussion was how to establish the limits of confidentiality without compromising the research in hand. The role and responsibilities of researchers in supporting children's welfare, and the development of procedures for ensuring that safeguarding is effective are discussed as key elements. In addition, the issues researchers may face when determining thresholds for intervention are considered alongside the uncertainties created by considerations of the extent to which children can give informed consent in research contexts. The paper reflects the process of considering these issues and the conclusions the working party drew as to how best to support children's welfare during research. It also outlines the key elements of the guidelines and the structures developed to ensure researchers could get advice if suspected child abuse became an issue in their research. The paper includes a short version of the guidelines which were eventually approved across the Higher Education Institute.
Ethische Fragen in der Forschung mit Kindern und Jugendlichen zu sexueller Gewalt: Ein Überblick
Forschung an und mit Kindern bzw. Jugendlichen kann einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Pravention oder Abmilderung der Folgen sexueller Gewalt leisten. Jedoch wirft diese Art von Forschung viele forschungs-ethische Fragen auf. Im Kapitel werden hierzu zunachst Vorgaben aus Gesetzen und Ethikrichtlinien diskutiert. In einem zweiten Schritt werden die ethischen Prinzipien der Non-Malefizienz, Benefizienz, des Respekts, der Vertrauenswurdigkeit und derFairness erortert.
Are researchers bound by child abuse reporting laws?
OBJECTIVE
To discuss issues concerning mandatory reporting of child abuse in research settings.


METHOD
An overview of existing Federal and State statutes regarding mandatory reporting of child abuse is presented. A critical review of the literature addresses the following issues: (1) whether researchers have a moral duty to place the health and safety of children above concerns about confidentiality and the benefits of obtaining new knowledge; (2) whether the Certificate of Confidentiality preempts reporting requirements; (3) whether researchers who are not health professionals (such as child developmentalists, psychobiologists, neuroscientists) should be required to report; and (4) whether researchers should be required to expand their protocols to include more in-depth investigation of potential abuse.


RESULTS
Existing child abuse reporting laws do not specifically designate researchers as among the category of individuals mandated to report suspected child abuse. Currently, Human Subject Protection Committees and Federal funding agencies are tending to interpret reporting laws as applying to researchers, including requiring that research subjects are informed of this responsibility in consenting procedures. It is unclear whether the Certificate of Confidentiality preempts child abuse reporting laws.


CONCLUSION
The authors recommend that legislatures specifically designate researchers as mandated reporters to ensure more uniform reporting practices in research settings. For both investigators and Human Subject Protection Committees, inclusion of researchers among the categories of those mandated to report would also help address issues of immunity from civil and criminal liability for "good faith" reports that turn out to be false and injurious.