Mandated reporters are required to recognize child abuse. Several states decided the way to guarantee that is to bake a course into the license. It's one of the older topic mandates — predating implicit bias and human trafficking by years — and it splits cleanly into two camps: states that make you retake it every cycle, and states that count it as one-and-done.
Which camp your state is in changes everything about how you plan. Here's how three states handle it.
Pennsylvania: recurring, every renewal
Pennsylvania is the every-cycle model. The State Board of Nursing requires 2 of an RN's 30 biennial contact hours to be Board-approved CE in child abuse recognition and reporting — every renewal, not once. It counts toward the 30-hour total, so it's not extra time, but it is a recurring bucket you can't skip. Pennsylvania LPNs face the same 2-hour child-abuse requirement even though they have no general hour total. Both are covered in the Pennsylvania RN CE guide, which also walks through the state's new organ-donation course.
New York: one-time, tied to the license
New York is the one-and-done model — with a twist. It requires a one-time 2-hour course in child abuse identification and reporting. Historically tied to licensure, recent amendments to Social Services Law extended the requirement, so confirm whether you've satisfied the current version. New York physicians have the same one-time 2-credit course. What makes New York distinctive is that it has no general CME hour total for physicians or RNs — just mandated coursework like this one. We explain that unusual structure in New York physicians have no CME total but three required courses and in why New York's triennial cycle makes planning harder.
Kentucky: a related front-loaded course
Kentucky doesn't frame its rule as "child abuse reporting" exactly, but it requires a one-time 1.5-hour pediatric abusive head trauma course for nurses who graduated outside Kentucky or from a Kentucky program before a certain date. It's narrower than Pennsylvania's or New York's, aimed at a specific clinical scenario, and tied to where and when you trained. That training-based trigger is easy to miss if you assume the requirement is universal.
Recurring vs one-time is the whole game
If you practice in Pennsylvania, you'll do this course again and again, every two years. If you practice in New York, you did it once and you're done — assuming you can produce the certificate years later. That's a meaningful difference in how you store records: a one-time certificate from 2014 has to survive until a 2026 audit. The post on CME records to keep and for how long is worth reading if your requirement is one-time, because the proof outlives the course by a decade. The general distinction is in one-time vs recurring mandates.
The company child-abuse CE keeps
States that mandate child-abuse reporting often mandate other protective-population content: domestic violence, human trafficking, and sometimes suicide prevention. Pennsylvania and New York both layer several of these. If your board requires one, scan the list for the rest so nothing surprises you at renewal.
If you're licensed in more than one state
A New York one-time course won't clear Pennsylvania's recurring requirement. You handle each license on its own terms — see a plan for each license, and for nurses crossing state lines, the compact practice-state overlay.
For official wording, the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing renewal page shows how a recurring child-abuse rule reads. Find your specifics on RN CE by state or physician CME by state.
White Glove CME tells you whether your child-abuse course is recurring or one-time, whether you've already cleared it, and where the certificate needs to live — for $99 per license renewal. We plan; we don't grant credit. Tell us your state and license and we'll map it.
Need help figuring out your CME?
Stop guessing what CME you need. Tell us your license type, state, and renewal date, and we'll map exactly which continuing-education hours and mandated topics you need — and by when. Flat $99 per plan.