Great news! Legislation providing Child Protective Services access to criminal history backgrounds of adults living in the home, or the subjects of, suspected abuse or neglect passed the New York State Legislature late Tuesday night (A.4425a, Mayersohn/S.2978, Robach).
We believe this legislation will enable child protective workers to do their jobs more safely and more effectively.
A child protective worker can not possibly make a reasonable and valid assessment of a child's safety without complete and reliable information about the adults living with the child or otherwise named as subjects of a report. Access to criminal history information allows an investigator to immediately know if a person suspected of abuse has a violent criminal history or a record of crimes against children.
Child protective workers can not protect children without putting themselves in harm's way. It’s imperative that we not only protect these individuals, but also provide them with information to better prepare to respond to allegations of abuse or neglect through a more complete understanding of the risk and safety measures needed for them to conduct their investigations.
The end result will be improved protection for the most vulnerable among us.
We invite you to join us in urging Governor Paterson to sign this important legislation.
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