On Tuesday, March 17, Governor Mark Dayton signed into law House File 8, a bill that implements two recommendations from the Governor’s Task Force on the Protection of Children. The new law is effective immediately. In his press release on this action, Governor Dayton said that he has dedicated an additional $52.5 million for child protection measures. He also stated:
“This new law will restore an important layer of protection that will help identify abuse and enhance the safety of our children. I thank the Legislature for acting quickly and unanimously on this important legislation.”
HF 8, authored by Rep. Ron Kresha, passed unanimously in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The new law (Chapter 4 in the 2015 Minnesota Session Laws) emphasizes child safety in the public policy statement of the Reporting of Maltreatment of Minors Act (Minn. Stat. 626.556, subd. 1) by stating “the health and safety of the children shall be of paramount concern” and by modifying the structure of a sentence that discusses family engagement: rather than stating that families are best served by engaging their protective capacities and addressing immediate safety concerns and risks of maltreatment, the new law states that interventions should address immediate safety concerns and risks of maltreatment and families’ protective capacities should be engaged. It also adds “protect children and promote child safety” as the first “intent of the legislature” under this policy.
The new law also repeals the 2014 law that barred the consideration of screened out reports of maltreatment for anything other than a social services referral. While this does not mean that screeners are now required to consider screened out reports, it does allow the State to provide practice guidance to counties allowing them to consider screened out reports. Last month DHS issued a bulletin providing interim child safety practice guidelines, which included a section related to consideration of past child maltreatment referral history. This will likely be updated soon; in fact, the Star Tribune reports that the Department of Human Services Commissioner, Lucinda Jesson, stated that DHS will expedite this guidance to counties.
We will likely see more on child protection reform in the coming months (and potentially years). This is meant to be a first step.