Finding that the lower court failed to give proper weight to the state’s interest in protecting children from abuse, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has reversed a Commonwealth Court ruling that raised the evidentiary standard the state Department of Public Welfare must meet in order to maintain information from child-abuse reports on its ChildLine and Abuse Registry.
Under the state’s Child Protective Services Law, a person seeking employment in which there is a significant likelihood of direct contact with children or residing in a family day-care home must provide certification that he or she is not on the ChildLine registry, the DPW’s toll-free system for disclosing reports of child abuse to certain designated government officials, law enforcement and other third parties.
