Mandated Reporting Harm Reduction: Balancing Risk Assessment Tool (BRAT)
In Collaboration with: The Mandatory Reporting Is Not Neutral Project and Interrupting Criminalization’s Beyond Do No Harm Network
Over and over again, we hear from people navigating the realities of mandated reporting and family policing: “What happens if I do it wrong? Will I get in trouble?”
Navigating the everyday realities of mandatory reporting and concerns about the harms of criminalization can feel daunting. People concerned about the harms of mandated reporting face a slew of messages from "We need mandated reporting to keep children safe," to "Don't report! Never comply with unjust laws."
The Mandated Reporting Balancing Risk Assessment Tool (BRAT) outlines some of the most common questions practitioners and community-based groups encounter when navigating the realities of mandated reporting and supports them to develop practices that align with their values, reduce the harms of criminalization, and assess the various risks associated with mandated reporting.
The Mandated Reporting Balancing Risk Assessment Tool (BRAT) lifts up Shira Hassan’s definition of Liberatory Harm Reduction: “…A philosophy and set of empowerment-based practices that teach us how to accompany each other as we transform the root causes of harm in our lives. We put our values into action using real-life strategies to reduce the negative health, legal and social consequences that result from criminalized and stigmitized life experiences…”
Shira staffs IC’s Transformative Justice Help Desk, which offers thought partnership and one-on-one consultation to groups and individuals who are working on projects and community-wide interventions to respond to, transform, or interrupt violence and harm without using the police and other carceral systems. If that’s you, reach out and make an appointment.
If you are a health care worker looking for a thought partner on practical strategies for organizing to interrupt or resist criminalization in health care environments, reach out to our free Beyond Do No Harm Health Care Strategy Consult.
For anyone organizing outside of health care environments and looking for sounding board around strategies to interrupt criminalization, policing, and state violence, check out our Resisting Criminalization Help Desk, which offers support with understanding, resisting, and navigating around criminalizing legislation, policies, and policing practices. If you’re a journalist, media maker, or communications worker, check out our Abolition Media Office Hours.
