8462 - PROCEDURES ON CHILD ABUSE, ABANDONMENT, NEGLECT AND CHILDREN IN NEED OF SERVICES
In compliance with Board policy and State statute, all staff members are required to report to the proper legal authorities any sign of child abuse or neglect. The child may suffer from physical abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, and/or emotional maltreatment. Basically, physical abuse is the nonaccidental, physical injury of a child; physical neglect is the failure to provide proper parental care, support medical attention, and education for a child; sexual abuse is any indecent sexual activity; and emotional maltreatment is failure to provide warmth, attention, supervision, and/or normal living experiences for a child.
For purposes of this policy, the following definitions shall apply:
"Abandoned" means a situation in which the parent or legal custodian of a child, or the person responsible for the child's welfare, while being able, makes no provision for the child's support and makes no effort to communicate with the child, which situation is sufficient to evince a willful rejection of parental obligations. The term "abandoned" does not include a "child in need of services".
"Abuse" means any willful act or threatened act that results in any physical, mental, or sexual injury or harm that causes or is likely to cause the child's physical, mental, or emotional health to be significantly impaired. Abuse of a child includes acts or omissions.
"Department" means the Florida Department of Children and Families. "Department" can also mean the Department of Juvenile Justice.
"Harm" to a child's health or welfare can occur when any person inflicts or allows to be inflicted upon the child physical, mental, or emotional injury. In determining whether harm has occurred, the following factors must be considered in evaluating a physical, mental or emotional injury to a child; the age of the child; any prior history of injuries to the child; the location of the injury on the body of the child; the multiplicity of the injury; and the type of trauma inflicted.
"Neglect" occurs when a child is deprived of, or is allowed to be deprived of, necessary food, clothing, shelter, or medical treatment or a child is permitted to live in an environment when such deprivation or environment causes the child's physical, mental, or emotional health to be significantly impaired or to be in danger of being significantly impaired. Neglect of a child includes acts or omissions.
Mandatory Reports of Child Abuse, Abandonment, or Neglect
Any person who knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that a child is abused, abandoned, or neglected by a parent, legal custodian, caregiver, or other person responsible for the child's welfare, or that a child is in need of supervision and care and has no parent, legal custodian, or responsible adult relative immediately known and available to provide supervision and care shall report such knowledge or suspicion to the department's central abuse hotline. Such reports may be made on the single Statewide toll-free telephone number or via fax or web-based report. School teachers, other school officials and school personnel are in the category of required reporters.
A person who is required to report known or suspected child abuse, abandonment, or neglect and who knowingly and willfully fails to do so, or who knowingly and willfully prevents another person from doing so, is guilty of a misdemeanor of the first degree. A person who knowingly and willfully makes a false report of child abuse, abandonment, or neglect, or who advises another to make a false report, is guilty of a felony of the third degree.
School teachers or other school officials and personnel are required to provide their names to the hotline staff. The names of reports shall be entered into the record of the report, but shall be held confidential and exempt. Information in the central abuse hotline may not be used for employment screening, but information in the central abuse hotline may be used by the department, its authorized agents or contract providers, the Department of Health, or county agencies as part of the licensure or registration process.
Children in Need of Services
A "child in need of services" is a child for whom there is no pending investigation into an allegation or suspicion of abuse, neglect, or abandonment; no pending referral alleging the child is delinquent; or no current supervision by the Department of Juvenile Justice or the Department of Children and Family Services for an adjudication of dependency or delinquency. The child must also be found by the court:
to have persistently run away from the child's parents or legal custodians despite reasonable efforts of the child, the parents or legal custodians, and appropriate agencies to remedy the conditions contributing to the behavior;
to be habitually truant from school, which subject to compulsory school attendance, despite reasonable efforts to remedy the situation; or
to have persistently disobeyed the reasonable and lawful demands of the child's parents or legal custodians, and to be beyond their control despite efforts by the child's parents or legal custodians and appropriate agencies to remedy the conditions contributing to the behavior.
"Habitually truant" means that:
the child has fifteen (15) unexcused absences within ninety (90) calendar days with or without the knowledge or justifiable consent of the child's parent or legal guardian, is subject to compulsory school attendance, and is not exempt; and
activities to determine the cause, and to attempt the remediation, of the child's truant behavior have been completed.
The Department of Juvenile Justice is responsible for all nonjudicial proceedings involving a family in need of services. The circuit court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of judicial proceedings in which a child is alleged to be a child in need of services.
Child Abuse Prevention Training in the District School System
It is the intent of the Legislature that a primary prevention and training program directed toward preventing the occurrence of child abuse, child abandonment, child neglect, and drug and alcohol abuse be encouraged in the District school system through the training of school teachers, guidance counselors, parents and children.
© Neola 2009