Home > Laws & Policies > Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act as Amended by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act
as Amended by the
Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003
SECTION I: CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION AND TREATMENT ACT
Sec. 103. NATIONAL CLEARINGHOUSE FOR INFORMATION RELATING TO CHILD ABUSE. [42 U.S.C. 5104]
[This section was amended by sec. 111 of P.L. 108-36.]
- ESTABLISHMENT.—The Secretary shall through the Department, or
by one or more contracts of not less than 3 years duration let through a
competition, establish a national clearinghouse for information relating to child
abuse.
- FUNCTIONS.—The Secretary shall, through the clearinghouse
established by subsection (a)—
- maintain, coordinate, and disseminate information on all effective
programs, including private and community-based programs, that show
promise of success with respect to the prevention, assessment,identification, and treatment of child abuse and neglect and hold the potential for broad scale implementation and replication;
- maintain information about best practices used for achieving
improvements in child protective systems;
- maintain and disseminate information relating to—
- the incidence of cases of child abuse and neglect in the United
States;
- the incidence of such cases in populations determined by the
Secretary under section 105(a)(1) of the Child Abuse Prevention,
Adoption, and Family Services Act of 1988; and
- the incidence of any such cases related to alcohol or drug
abuse;
- provide technical assistance upon request that may include an
evaluation or identification of—
- various methods and procedures for the investigation,
assessment, and prosecution of child physical and sexual abuse cases;
- ways to mitigate psychological trauma to the child victim; and
- effective programs carried out by the States under this Act; and
- collect and disseminate information relating to various training
resources available at the State and local level to—
- individuals who are engaged, or who intend to engage, in the
prevention, identification, and treatment of child abuse and neglect; and
- appropriate State and local officials to assist in training law
enforcement, legal, judicial, mental health, education, and child welfare
personnel.
- COORDINATION WITH AVAILABLE RESOURCES.—
- IN GENERAL.—In establishing a national clearinghouse as
required by subsection (a), the Secretary shall—
- consult with other Federal agencies that operate similar
clearinghouses;
- consult with the head of each agency involved with child abuse
and neglect and mechanisms for the sharing of such information among
other Federal agencies and clearinghouses on the development of thecomponents for information collection and management of such clearinghouse;
- develop a Federal data system involving the elements under
subsection (b) which, to the extent practicable, coordinates existing
Federal, State, regional, and local child welfare data systems which
shall include—
- standardized data on false, unfounded, unsubstantiated, and
substantiated reports; and
- information on the number of deaths due to child abuse
and neglect;
- through a national data collection and analysis program and in
consultation with appropriate State and local agencies and experts in
the field, collect, compile, and make available State child abuse and
neglect reporting information which, to the extent practical, shall be
universal and case specific and integrated with other case-based foster
care and adoption data collected by the Secretary;
- compile, analyze, and publish a summary of the research
conducted under section 104(a);
- collect and disseminate information that describes best
practices being used throughout the Nation for making appropriate
referrals related to, and addressing, the physical, developmental, and
mental health needs of abused and neglected children; and
- solicit public comment on the components of such
clearinghouse.
- CONFIDENTIALITY REQUIREMENT.—In carrying out
paragraph (1)(D), the Secretary shall ensure that methods are established
and implemented to preserve the confidentiality of records relating to case
specific data.
Return to Table of Contents