On September 13, 2024, OAA’s Executive Director Vicki Deisner and Board member Dr. Alana Van Gundy presented at the International Association of Veterinary Social Workers Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Vicki and Alana participated on a panel with Dr. Aviva Vincent and OSU veterinarian student Ginny Behmer discussing the success and challenges of Ohio’s cross-reporting law. Ohio’s cross-reporting law mandates that social workers, counselors, family therapists and veterinarians report animal abuse, and humane agents, dog wardens and law enforcement report child and elder abuse.
Cross-reporting is a strategy that can improve the community’s response to crimes against both people and animals and that may also help prevent future violence. The notion of cross-reporting presupposes that four types of family violence —domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, and animal cruelty— rarely occur in a vacuum. They often overlap, and the commission of one of these crimes often is a “red flag” that other forms have occurred or will be coming next. For various reasons, animal cruelty, abuse, and neglect are often the sentinel warning signs, and the first “link” in the chain of family violence. When human services are encouraged to contact humane services when they observe what they have been trained to recognize as signs of possible abuse of an animal, a family may also be saved.
