You Can Legislate It! - University of Kentucky

You Can Legislate It!

Using the Legislative Process to
Improve Child Protection Systems--

Examples from 2006-2011 State
Statutory Reforms

Howard Davidson, J.D.
Director, ABA Center on Children and the Law
[email protected]

Best Way to Enact Legislative Reforms:
Work in Coalition!

CRPs should work with:
 State Children’s Justice Act Task Forces
 State Court Improvement Committees
 State Advocacy Programs for Children and

Youth
 Children’s Law Centers / CACs / CASA

Programs
 Prevent Child Abuse America Chapters
 State and County Child Welfare Agencies

Animal Cruelty-Child Protection

 Humane officers / Animal Control officers
mandated to report suspected child
maltreatment / and cross-reporting obligations
by police/CPS when suspecting animal cruelty

Major Child Protection Law Rewrite

 Includes revising definitions of abuse/neglect,
list of mandated professional reporters, and
addressing out-of-home perpetrators

 Revisiting police reporting, multidisciplinary
team approaches, & central registry issues

 See: www.ohiochildlaw.com



Central Registries/Criminal Histories

 Clarify “due process” / challenge / expungement
procedures, including notice, administrative and
judicial reviews

 Clarify policy on maintenance of information on
unsubstantiated reports

 Address how “child offenders” will be treated
 Specify certain types of founded cases that will

NOT be placed on the registry because the adult is
of low risk of repeating maltreatment
 Alter criminal background check processes and
uses of that information
 Mandate criminal checks before reunifications

Differential Response

 Use statute to authorize a “pilot” or “pilots”
 Define which types of cases will get DR
 Set up parameters for evaluation of DR
 As of March 2010, over 30 states had laws

in some way addressing DR, such as:
 Piloting; funding; creating a mandatory or

optional dual track approach; setting forth
the levels of risk/injury/harm for each
approach; when to switch “tracks”; when
cases will go on the central registry

Revising Types of “Child Victimization”

 Repeat reports on children handled specially
 CPS getting reports from police if children in

car driven by parent “under the influence”
 Committing domestic violence in the

presence of a child (a good idea?)
 CPS accepting reports of injury to a child’s

intellectual, emotional or psychological
development from medical, mental health,
teachers, guidance counselors, day care
 Allowing court to adjudicate as “dependent”
morbidly obese children (a good idea?)
 Other new areas? What about Botox?!!!



Getting FASD Newborns Referred

 Enact a law to implement the new 2010
CAPTA requirement on referrals/plans

Data Availability / Child Fatalities /
Disclosures to Public

 Create a “Child Protection Accountability
System” to collect and make available to
the public data on cases that were
reported, findings, appellate challenges,
dependency court cases and their
outcomes, police responses to reports,
criminal prosecutions and their outcomes,
etc.

 Mandate public release, within a certain
time period, of specified information on
fatality/near-fatality cases, with exceptions
listed, & with remedies if such information
is not released to public

 When a reported child victim’s, or CPS
child client’s, location is unknown, mandate
police notification and entry into state and
national missing child databases

 Specify when NON-fatality/near-fatality
CPS information can be disclosed to public

 Establish a STATE child fatality/near-
fatality review team

Home Visiting

 Authorize establishment of pilot programs,
set eligibility criteria, requirements for home
visitors, program goals, etc.

 Prevent Child Abuse America in 2002
reported information on over 40 laws that in
some way were addressing home visitation

Investigative Practices

 Address situations where a CPS
investigator can’t find the child or is denied
home access; obtaining investigative court
orders

Police Involvement

 Mandate the updating of child sex abuse
investigative joint protocols

 Require “child abuse incident training” in the
basic law enforcement training class, and for
in-service annually required training

 Require development of a police training
curriculum on abuse/neglect to be completed
in a set amount of time

Multi-Disciplinary Teams

 Designate composition & duties of the teams
 Create statewide “child safety centers” / CACs
 Use MDTs for case disposition planning

Enhancing Medical Support

 Create a “Child Abuse Medical Providers”
Network to aid prevention, diagnosis and
treatment (2 states)

 Give clear authority for hospitals to conduct
evaluations without parental consent and to
hold children if release would endanger them

Ombudsmen for Children

 Create an independent “child protection
ombudsman” or, within a child welfare agency

 Mandate that the child welfare agency provide
them with the resources they need

Cases that Cross State Lines

 Mandate contact with sister CPS agencies to
determine outcomes of child maltreatment
investigations in those other states

 Mandate consideration as evidence, by
agencies and courts, of substantiated child
maltreatment occurring in another jurisdiction

Perpetrators

 Create criminal offense of child neglect, for
intentional failure to provide necessary help
for physical needs or mental health of child
when it creates a substantial risk of harm or
injury (except if parent destitute or homeless)

 Create crime of leaving a child unattended
in a car for period that poses unreasonable
risk of harm or injury – misdemeanor unless
child suffers serious harm

 Give juvenile dependency judges authority
to remove adults from the home through
“child protective orders” (& violation a crime)

 Create new felony of “reckless assault of a
child” – causing serious brain injury by
slamming or throwing the child so as to
impact their head on hard surface or object

 Add to abuse/neglect definition parents
committing or allowing involuntary servitude
or trafficking of a child

Prevention
Shaken Baby Syndrome

 Mandate public education campaigns
 Mandate training of care providers including

prospective foster and adoptive parents, &
address this in a pamphlet (in English and
Spanish) that is given to all new parents

More on Home Visiting

 Mandate that state fund evidence-based
and research-based home visiting programs

 Require a pamphlet for new parents that
includes information on home visiting
availability

Other Prevention

 Require (law says, “to the extent
appropriations are available”) a public
education campaign on “zero tolerance” for
child abuse/neglect, including signs of
maltreatment, the hotline number, & services
available to families to prevent child
maltreatment, including substance abuse,
domestic violence, and mental health
treatment services

 Require all buses to promote the “parental
helpline” -- & schools and child care providers
must give the number to students and parents

 Mandate that statewide child abuse/neglect
Task Force educate public about child
maltreatment, develop a statewide plan to
prevent it including prevention strategies,
mobilize citizens and community agencies in
proactive prevention and treatment, and
enhance local agency cooperation in the
provision of services to children & families

 Create a strategic plan for a new statewide
approach to prevention of child sexual abuse
(74 pages); enhances sentencing & criminal
record access; funds special police
investigation units; creates state Center for
Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Abuse

Mandated Reporters

 Adds: those working with victims of sexual
assault or in other victim services programs;
family or domestic violence advocates; those
working in schools, including private schools
(beyond just teachers, e.g., contractors, school
superintendents, bus drivers/attendants,
guidance counselors, administrators)

 Require training completion on reporting for
physicians, police, and prosecutors

 Extend immunity of health care providers

 Grant CPS access to health care records

 Require feedback to reporters

 Provide protection from retaliation for
reporting & not allow interference with it

Schools

 Mandate annual school employee training
on child abuse/neglect, and offer similar
training to parents and children

 Create procedures for interviews of children
in school by CPS

 Improve school systems/CPS responses to
cases of educational neglect

 Require schools to have child sexual abuse
policies

CPS Workforce Issues

 Require CPS supervisors to complete an
itemized checklist before any investigation is
completed, including verifying face-to-face
contact with child victim & noting other child
safety/well-being issues

 Mandate CPS supervisor annual training,
and specify its contents

 Re-set maximum caseload limits for workers
doing CPS investigations (e.g., reduced from
14 to 11)

 Specify that CPS can, to protect worker
safety, obtain within an hour criminal
background checks on those in homes they
are investigating or servicing, mandate
reporting of threatening or assaultive
behavior (with database on incidents), have
an office “safety liaison”, have policies and
procedures on prevention of violence in
office & community, facilitate safety training
and protocols with police, do risk
assessments of all offices related to safety,
convene a safety work group, and if worker
safety is a concern have staff be
accompanied by a police officer in the field

We wrote this book to
help judges and lawyers
make more informed
decisions affecting the
safety of abused and
neglected children

$21.99 (2009)

Available at:

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