Child Abuse Death Disclosure Act

Child Abuse Death Disclosure Act

This bill requires states receiving child welfare grants to report specified information about child deaths from maltreatment. Specifically, multidisciplinary teams from within the child welfare system in each state must

• make a finding concerning the causes of each child fatality during the annual review period;
• submit such findings to the Child Death Review Case Reporting System;
• develop recommendations to prevent future child deaths from maltreatment;
• submit annual reports with this information to the state’s governor and legislature; and
• if the number of child deaths in a state exceeds an established threshold, submit a report to the Children’s Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families.

Further, the Children’s Bureau must promulgate rules establishing standardized definitions for states to use in such reporting.