1.This Act may be cited as the
Protect our Kids Act of
2011
.
2.Congress finds that—
(1)deaths from child
abuse and neglect are preventable;
(2)deaths from child
abuse and neglect are significantly underreported and there is no national
standard for reporting such deaths;
(3)according to the
National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, in fiscal year 2009 approximately
1,770 children in the United States are reported to have died from child abuse
and neglect, and many experts believe that the actual number may be
significantly more;
(4)nearly half of the
number of children in the United States who die from abuse are under the age of
1, and more than 80 percent are under the age of 4;
(5)in 2009, of deaths from child abuse and
neglect—
(A)nearly 36 percent were caused by
neglect;
(B)23 percent were caused by physical abuse;
and
(C)more than 36 percent were caused by
multiple forms of maltreatment;
(6)each year approximately 6,000,000 children
in the United States are referred to child protective services because of
allegations of child abuse and neglect; and
(7)increased
understanding of deaths from child abuse and neglect can lead to improvement in
agency systems and practices to protect children and prevent child abuse and
neglect.
3.Establishment of
commission
(a)There
is established the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities
(in this Act referred to as the Commission).
(b)
(1)
(A)The
Commission shall be composed of not fewer than 12 and not more than 15 members,
all of whom shall be appointed by the President.
(B)Each
member appointed under subparagraph (A) shall have experience in 1 or more
areas consisting of—
(i)State child welfare agency
administration;
(ii)child welfare
advocacy;
(iii)child
development;
(iv)trauma and crisis
intervention;
(v)pediatrics;
(vi)child psychology
and mental health;
(vii)emergency
medicine;
(viii)forensic
pathology or medical investigation of injury and fatality;
(ix)social work with
field experience;
(x)academia at an
institution of higher education, as that term is defined in section 101 of the
Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001), with a focus on 1 or more of the
other areas listed under this subparagraph;
(xi)law enforcement, with experience handling
child abuse and neglect matters;
(xii)civil law, with experience handling child
abuse and neglect matters;
(xiii)criminal law, with experience handling
child abuse and neglect matters;
(xiv)substance abuse
treatment;
(xv)education at an
elementary school or secondary school, as those terms are defined in section
9101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C.
7801);
(xvi)epidemiology;
and
(xvii)computer
science or software engineering with a background in interoperability
standards.
(C)The
Commission shall have 1 or more members with experience in each of the areas
listed in subparagraph (B).
(2)The
appointments of the members of the Commission shall be made not later than 90
days after the date of enactment of this Act.
(c)Period of
appointment; vacanciesMembers shall be appointed for the life of
the Commission. Any vacancy in the Commission shall not affect its powers, but
shall be filled in the same manner as the original appointment.
(d)Not later than 30 days after the date on which all
members of the Commission have been appointed, the Commission shall hold its
first meeting.
(e)The
Commission shall meet at the call of the Chairperson.
(f)A
majority of the members of the Commission shall constitute a quorum, but a
lesser number of members may hold hearings.
(g)The
President shall select a Chairperson for the Commission from among its
members.
4.
(a)
(1)The Commission shall conduct a thorough study on reducing
fatalities from child abuse and neglect.
(2)The matters studied by the Commission shall
include—
(A)the incidence of
fatalities from child abuse and neglect in the United States and whether that
incidence has been increasing over time;
(B)the feasibility of
establishing a system that accurately records incidents of child abuse and
neglect;
(C)practices that can
prevent fatalities from child abuse and neglect;
(D)the role of parental substance abuse,
parental mental health issues, and domestic violence in increasing the
incidence of child abuse and neglect;
(E)the adequacy and
effectiveness of programs, including child health services, mental health
services, child protective services, child welfare services, education, child
care, juvenile justice services, and law enforcement activities, designed to
identify and prevent child (includes youth) fatalities that are intentionally
caused or that occur due to negligence, neglect, or a failure to exercise
proper care;
(F)the effectiveness
of Federal, State, and local policies and systems aimed at appropriately
identifying and collecting accurate, uniform data on child fatalities in a
coordinated fashion, including the identification of the most and least
effective policies and systems in practice;
(G)the adequacy of
Federal, State, and local efforts to obtain an appropriate distribution of
properly trained child health services, mental health services, child
protective services, child welfare services, education, child care, juvenile
justice services, and law enforcement personnel to identify and prevent child
fatalities;
(H)the current (as of
the date of the study) resource limitations and barriers to preventing
fatalities from child abuse and neglect, and how to improve efficiency of use
of those current resources to improve child welfare outcomes;
(I)identification of
best practices in evaluating programs for effectiveness in preventing child
abuse and neglect and fatalities from child abuse and neglect;
(J)methods of
prioritizing child abuse and neglect prevention services for families with the
highest need, including exploring prioritization based on risk factors beyond
poverty;
(K)the correlation
between animal abuse and child abuse, including whether additional research and
policy changes could better address that correlation and whether there are
warning signs that animal abuse may escalate to child abuse;
(L)methods of
improving data collection and utilization, such as increasing interoperability
among State and local systems and using other effective and financially
feasible approaches;
(M)identification of
best practices and models for promoting child welfare, specifically addressing
child abuse and neglect;
(N)identification of
requirements and national standards for training and education for child
welfare workers;
(O)the potential
impact of a Federal law mandating the review of fatalities of children;
(P)the development of
a model protocol for assuring that civil and criminal legal proceedings are
closely coordinated between child protection and law enforcement agencies,
including coordination between law enforcement personnel, child protection
services personnel, prosecutors, medical providers, victim advocates, and
mental health professionals;
(Q)the potential
effectiveness of a targeted public education campaign focused on community
involvement to reduce child abuse and neglect;
(R)possible
modifications to confidentiality laws that would increase access to information
and better protect child victims;
(S)examination of
public and private models for improving child welfare outcomes, including
suggestions for expanding the most effective approaches;
(T)examination of
sources for available data beyond fatalities, such as data on serious injuries
and near misses
;
(U)development of
guidelines for the type of instances that should be tracked to improve child
welfare response and interventions to prevent fatalities from child abuse and
neglect; and
(V)consideration of
past recommendations from the Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect,
including updates on those recommendations.
(3)The Commission shall
review all current (as of the date of the study) research and documentation,
including the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being and research
and recommendations from the Government Accountability Office, to identify
lessons, solutions, and needed improvements related to reducing fatalities from
child abuse and neglect.
(b)The
Commission shall—
(1)provide
opportunities for graduate and doctoral students to coordinate research with
the Commission; and
(2)coordinate with
institutions of higher education, as that term is defined in section 101 of the
Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001), interested in supporting the
work of the Commission.
(c)The
Commission shall develop recommendations for Federal, State, and local
agencies, and private sector and nonprofit organizations to implement a
comprehensive national strategy that reduces fatalities from child abuse and
neglect.
(d)
(1)Not later than 3 years after the date of the enactment of
this Act, the Commission shall submit a report to the President and Congress,
which shall contain a detailed statement of the findings and conclusions of the
Commission, together with its recommendations for such legislation and
administrative actions as it considers appropriate.
(2)The Commission shall make the report under paragraph (1)
available on the publicly available Internet Web site of the Department of
Health and Human Services.
5.
(a)
(1)The Commission may hold such hearings, sit and act at
such times and places, take such testimony, and receive such evidence as the
Commission considers advisable to carry out this Act.
(2)The
location of hearings under paragraph (1) shall include—
(A)areas with high
fatality rates from child abuse and neglect; and
(B)areas that have
shown a decrease in fatalities from child abuse and neglect.
(3)The
Commission shall hold hearings under paragraph (1)—
(A)to examine the
Federal, State, and local policies and available resources that affect
fatalities from child abuse and neglect; and
(B)to explore the
matters studied under section 4(a)(2).
(b)Information from
federal agenciesThe Commission may secure directly from any
Federal department or agency such information as the Commission considers
necessary to carry out this Act. Upon request of the Chairperson of the
Commission, the head of such department or agency shall furnish such
information to the Commission.
(c)The Commission may use the United States mails in the
same manner and under the same conditions as other departments and agencies of
the Federal Government.
(d)The
Commission may accept, use, and dispose of gifts or donations of services or
property.
6.Commission
personnel matters
(a)Each member of the Commission who is not an officer or
employee of the Federal Government shall be compensated at a rate equal to the
daily equivalent of the annual rate of basic pay prescribed for level IV of the
Executive Schedule under section 5315 of title 5, United States Code, for each
day (including travel time) during which such member is engaged in the
performance of the duties of the Commission. All members of the Commission who
are officers or employees of the United States shall serve without compensation
in addition to that received for their services as officers or employees of the
United States.
(b)The members of the Commission shall be allowed travel
expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, at rates authorized for
employees of agencies under subchapter I of chapter 57 of title 5, United
States Code, while away from their homes or regular places of business in the
performance of services for the Commission.
(c)
(1)The Chairperson of the Commission may, without regard to
the civil service laws and regulations, appoint and terminate an executive
director and such other additional personnel as may be necessary to enable the
Commission to perform its duties. The employment of an executive director shall
be subject to confirmation by the Commission.
(2)The
Chairperson of the Commission may fix the compensation of the executive
director and other personnel without regard to chapter 51 and subchapter III of
chapter 53 of title 5, United States Code, relating to classification of
positions and General Schedule pay rates, except that the rate of pay for the
executive director and other personnel may not exceed the rate payable for
level V of the Executive Schedule under section 5316 of such title.
(d)Detail of
government employeesAny Federal Government employee may be
detailed to the Commission without reimbursement, and such detail shall be
without interruption or loss of civil service status or privilege.
(e)Procurement of
temporary and intermittent servicesThe Chairperson of the
Commission may procure temporary and intermittent services under section
3109(b) of title 5, United States Code, at rates for individuals that do not
exceed the daily equivalent of the annual rate of basic pay prescribed for
level V of the Executive Schedule under section 5316 of such title.
7.Termination of
the commission
(a)The Commission shall
terminate on the earlier of—
(1)the 90th day after the date on which the
Commission submits its report under section 4(d); or
(2)the day that is 3 years after the initial
meeting under section 3(d).
(b)The
President may extend the termination date under subsection (a)(2) by an
additional 1 year.
8.Not later than 6
months after the submission of the report required under section 4(d), any
Federal agency that is affected by a recommendation described in the report
shall submit to Congress a report containing the response of the Federal agency
to the recommendation and the plans of the Federal agency to address the
recommendation.
9.Authorization of
appropriations
(a)There is authorized to be appropriated $2,000,000 for
each of fiscal years 2012, 2013, and 2014 to the Commission to carry out this
Act.
(b)Any
sums appropriated under the authorization contained in this section shall
remain available, without fiscal year limitation, until expended.