The Senate Family and Children Services Committee heard HB 1123 authored by Rep. DeVon and sponsored by Sen. Messmer on child advocacy centers. The bill:
- provides the department of child services (DCS) may use a child advocacy center to coordinate a multidisciplinary team for responding to reports involving child abuse or neglect.
- requires the child advocacy center to coordinate a multidisciplinary team which consists of certain professionals; ensure the multidisciplinary team members have certain training; provide a dedicated child-focused setting designed to provide a safe, comfortable, and neutral place for a forensic interview and other child advocacy center services; use written protocols for case review; use a case tracking system to provide information on essential demographic and case information; and verify that the multidisciplinary team members responsible for providing medical evaluations and mental health services have certain training.
- provides the child advocacy center’s agents and employees civil immunity in certain circumstances.
- allows otherwise confidential information regarding an investigation of child abuse or neglect to be made available to child advocacy centers.
The bill was amended by consent to provide that the bill’s civil immunity provision applies to members of a child advocacy center’s board of directors and to volunteers and employees of a child advocacy center. The amendment also removes references to agents of child advocacy centers and amends the bill’s provision regarding provision of confidential information to a child advocacy center to specify that the provision applies when a child advocacy center has before it an investigation of child abuse or neglect in which it is facilitating a forensic interview or facilitating a case discussion or case review. Finally, the amendment makes technical corrections.
Indiana Chapter of National Children’s Alliance, Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, the Hendricks County Prosecutor, and detectives from Avon Police Department and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department testified in support of the bill. DCS testified generally in support of the bill but took no position on the immunity provisions. A letter in support was provided by the Southwest Indiana Child Advocacy Center. The amended bill passed 8-0.
Read the bill at: https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2024/bills/house/1123