In the near future, we plan to introduce legislation that makes critical updates to our state’s Child Protective Services Law (CPSL). As we prepare to implement a new statewide case management system, we have a unique opportunity to modernize our terminology, close gaps in information sharing, and strengthen background check requirements to better protect Pennsylvania’s children.

Specifically, this legislation will update the CPSL by:

Modernizing Systems and Definitions

• Case Management vs. Registry: Clearly distinguishing between the child abuse registry and the broader statewide data system in light of upcoming system implementations.
• Clearer Terminology: Revising the language from “indicated or founded reports” to the more universally understood “substantiated reports.”
• Resource Families: Updating terminology to consistently use the existing defined term “resource family” where applicable.

Strengthening Background Checks & Prohibited Offenses

• Updating Prohibited Offenses: Recognizing recent updates to the Crimes Code by adding Section 3011 (trafficking in individuals), Section 3012 (involuntary servitude), Section 3013 (patronizing a victim of sexual servitude), and Section 2718 (strangulation) as prohibited offenses.
• Resource Family Clearances: Adding a new paragraph to Section 6344(d) to establish prohibited offenses specifically for prospective resource families.
• Child Care Centers: Adding Section 6344.1a to allow for a consolidated eligibility determination for child-care centers, group child-care homes, and family child-care homes, aligning Pennsylvania with federal requirements under 45 CFR 98.43.

Improving Information Sharing and Data Use

• Agency Access: Mirroring the access that counties currently have to reports and providing the Department of Human Services (DHS) with similar access specifically for safety assessments, evaluation of services, and research.
• Preventing Fatalities: Adding the Department of Health (DOH) and the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP) to the permitted exchange of information regarding child fatalities and near-fatalities, strictly for research, evaluation, and the identification of targeted prevention strategies.
• Timely Case Transfers: Clarifying the release of CPSL information to enumerated entities, explicitly requiring that case transfer information be provided within 7 days.

Clarifying Investigations, Reporting, and Processes

• Concurrent Investigations: Revising language to clearly reflect the pendency of administrative child abuse investigations when there is a simultaneous criminal investigation.
• Process for ARD: Permitting requests for a hearing when a person is named as a perpetrator (founded report) through the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program.
• Expungement: Clarifying the specific use of expungement.

By streamlining the CPSL, we can empower our child welfare professionals, ensure fairness in our administrative processes, and most importantly, keep children safe from abuse.

Please join us in co-sponsoring this vital piece of legislation.