Bill > S280

This bill, the Dominique Moody Act, makes significant changes to how North Carolina handles child abuse, neglect, and dependency cases by establishing a Child Welfare Case Escalation Team to review cases with a history of child protective services involvement, aiming to improve child safety and provide quality assurance. It also introduces a Predictive Risk Modeling Pilot Program to help identify children at higher risk of harm, mandates the collection of photographic or video evidence during initial child protective services assessments, and requires the creation of a public county child safety dashboard to track key performance indicators. Additionally, the bill clarifies procedures for expunging individuals from the responsible individuals list, modifies rules regarding juvenile case transfers and permanency planning, expands protections for sibling placements, and includes provisions for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in child advocacy centers. It also addresses liability by directing the Department of Justice to recommend ways to reduce state liability and place some on counties, and enhances public disclosure requirements for child fatalities and near fatalities, while also providing funding for these initiatives and for training child protective services employees.