MECHANICSBURG — Pennsylvania has expanded the laws addressing how caseworkers and investigators can handle reports of child abuse.

Among the bills signed by Gov. Tom Corbett Wednesday at the Pennsylvania Child Resource Center in Harrisburg were measures that expand the definition of who is considered a potential child abuser and lower the threshold for the kind of injury or pain that is considered child abuse.

Another lowers the threshold for the kind of injury to a child that could trigger a medical examination.

For too long, say child welfare advocates, Pennsylvania’s laws too narrowly defined the circumstances under which county caseworkers could step in to help a child they suspected of being physically or sexually abused. In some cases, the person who had hurt the child didn’t meet the law’s definition of an abuser, such as a coach or a relative who did not live with the child.

In other cases, the injuries to the child were deemed not serious enough to meet the law’s definition, said Cathleen Palm, founder of the Berks County-based Center for Children’s Justice. “Too often, on the civil child welfare side, we’ve not been able to give children a pathway to services and we’ve not been able to protect them from perpetrators,” Palm said.

Those services include a medical exam or counseling, or taking the child to a protective foster home.

Case workers who didn’t feel they could legally step in could refer the case to criminal investigators, but the threshold to prosecute child abuse is high and some cases never see an arrest, Palm said.

Another new law toughens the penalties for people caught producing, disseminating or viewing child pornography if the material depicts indecent contact with a child. Others order guidelines for child pornography cases and prevent the names of child victims from becoming public.

Bills still pending in the Legislature include a measure that would increase the punishment for people found guilty of covering up child abuse.