TEXAS

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WHO:        ANY person MUST report if s/he has cause to believe that a child has been adversely affected by abuse or neglect.  [Code Ann. § 261.101(a)]

These are mandatory (MUST report): • Individuals who are licensed or certified by the state or who are employees of facilities licensed, certified, or operated by the state and who, in the normal course of official duties or duties for which licensure or certification is required, have direct contact with children. • They are called professionals and include [i.e., these are examples]: • Teachers •  Nurses • Doctors • Day-care employees • Employees of a clinic or health care facility that provides reproductive services • Juvenile probation officers • Juvenile detention or correctional officers.  [Code Ann. § 261.101(b)]

·        Child or minor means under age 18 and never been married or emancipated. BUT reports of abuse or neglect must be made regardless of the victim’s age if s/he is a student at the Texas School for the Deaf or the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.  [Code Ann. §§ 101.003(a); 261.103]

·        STANDARD:  [Code Ann. §§ 261.101(a),(b),(b-1); 261.102] 

(1)      For any reporter: cause to believe: (a) a child’s physical or mental health or welfare has been adversely affected by abuse or neglect by anyone; or (b) an adult was a victim of abuse or neglect as a child, where the reporter determines in good faith that disclosing this information is necessary to protect the health and safety of another child, or an elderly person or person with a disability.

(2)      For a professional reporter: cause to believe: (a) a child has been or may be abused or neglected; (b) a child is a victim of a sexual offense and esd abused or neglected; or (c) an adult was a victim of abuse or neglect as a child, og the reporter determines in good faith that disclosing this information is necessary to protect the health and safety of another child, or person who is elderly or disabled.

·       PRIVILEGE:  NO privilege for attorneys, clergy members, medical practitioners, social workers, mental health professionals, employees or members of professional licensing or certification boards, nor employees of clinics or health care facilities that provide reproductive services. BUT attorney-client privileged info may be excluded from evidence in proceedings on abuse or neglect.  [Code Ann. §§ 261.101(c); 261.202]

WHEN:      For any reporter: IMMEDIATELY. A professional reporter MUST report no later than 48 HOURS after first suspecting the sexual offense.  [Code Ann. § 261.101(a),(b)] 

WHERE & HOW:  Reports are to one of (1) law enforcement; (2) Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS); or (3) for violations at a facility, the agency that operates, licenses, certifies, or registers it. Exceptions are below.  [Code Ann. §§ 261.103(a); Admin. Code tit. 40, § 700.479(a)]

Special Cases: 

(A)     Professional reporters must report directly for mandate(s); they may not delegate the report or rely on another person to make it.  [Code Ann. § 261.101(a),(b)]

(B)     If the abuse or neglect involves a person responsible for the care, custody, or welfare of the child, reports are made to DFPS unless the report falls under one of the TJJD exceptions below.  [Code Ann. §§ 261.103(c)]

(C)     If the abuse or neglect involves a facility, the statute indicates that reports are made to the agency that operates, licenses, certifies, or registers the facility where the incident(s) occurred.  [Code Ann. §§ 261.103(a)]  Note that DFPS also accepts and forwards those reports to the agencies. They can also be made to law enforcement.  [https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Child_Protection/Child_Safety/report_abuse.asp].

(D)     For abuse, neglect, or exploitation in a juvenile justice program or facility, reports are made to (1) the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) and (simultaneously) (2) a local law enforcement agency.  [Code Ann. §§ 261.405(b)]

(E)     If a child under TJJD supervision gives info that s/he abused another child [who was not necessarily under TJJD supervision at the time], that MAY be reported to TJJD instead of one of the other report takers.  [Code Ann. §§ 261.103(b)]

(F)     The statutes do not address which department or agency should take reports on someone who is NOT a person responsible for the child, when they abuse the child outside the home and not in a facility. It is suggested here to report to DFPS if the person is in the family or household, and otherwise to law enforcement.

CONTACT INFORMATION

·       For EMERGENCY or life-threatening situations:          Call 911

·       If URGENT (24-hour turnaround) (DFPS):                    1-800-252-5400 (24/7 hotline)

o   Deaf / hard of hearing: Texas Relay at 711 or 1-800-735-2989 voice or TTY. Tell the relay agent that you need to call the Texas Abuse Hotline at 1-800-252-5400.    

o    Urgent means any of: (a) serious injury; (b) injured child age 5 years or younger; (c) immediate medical need (including suicidal thoughts) (d) Sexual abuser with access to the victim – or will have it within 24 hours; (e) children age 5 or under are alone or likely to be left alone within 24 hours; (f) any other need for action in less than 24 hours.  [https://www.txabusehotline.org/Login/Default.aspx]

o    Spanish-language instructions:

https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Espanol/Servicios_de_Proteccion_al_Menor/reporting_abuse.asp

·           NON-URGENT, NON-EMERGENCY (DFPS):         https://www.txabusehotline.org

o   A user guide is provided at:

https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Training/Reporting/documents/Online_Texas_Abuse_Hotline_User_Guide.pdf

·       Facility licensing and operating agencies: as indicated above, the DFPS phone hotline and DFPS online reporting system are the designated receivers for those reports.          

·       Texas Juvenile Justice Department:                    1-877-786-7263

o   The phone number is for the Administrative Investigations Division; the digits are equivalent to 1-877-STOP-ANE, where ANE is Abuse, Neglect, & Exploitation.

·       Law Enforcement  directory:                           https://www.usacops.com/tx/

OTHER ASPECTS

·       INSTITUTIONS: (1) A mandated reporter may NOT delegate his/her reporting duty to others or rely on them to do it. [E.g., telling a medical employer about an incident does not shift the reporting duty to them]. (2) An employer may NOT penalize professionals for mandated reports or follow-up.  [Code Ann. §§ 261.101(b); 261.110(b)] 

·       REPORT DETAILS: The reporter MUST identify, if known: (a) the child’s name and address; (b) the name and address of the person responsible for the child’s care, custody, or welfare; and (c) any other pertinent information concerning the alleged or suspected abuse or neglect.  [Code Ann. § 261.104]  Intake seeks as much more information as possible about the people involved {(d) the child’s age, and a brief description of him/her; (e) names of siblings in the home; (f) names of relatives in or outside the home; and (g) the perpetrator’s name}; what happened {(h) brief description of the situation; (i) current injuries, and medical or behavioral problems (or other specific concerns); (j) the reporter’s name and contact info; (k) how the reporter knows about the situation; and (l) other possible witnesses}; and safety concerns {(m) domestic violence; (n) drug / alcohol abuse; (o) living conditions; and (p) other safety issues (e.g., weapons, gang involvement, or dangerous people, pets, or conditions)}.  [https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Contact_Us/report_abuse_faqs.asp] 

·       REPORTER PROTECTION: (1) Statutes do not require reports to name the reporter. (2) Without written consent, his/her name is not released except to criminal investigators, or by court order after private determination that it is essential for justice and unlikely to endanger anyone’s life or safety.  [Code Ann. §§ 261.101(d); 261.201]  (3) Any reporter in good faith is immune from civil and criminal liability; but bad faith, malice, or abuse or neglect of the child are not immune.  [Code Ann. § 261.106(a),(c)]

WHY:        (1) Knowing failure to make a required report is a class A misdemeanor for any reporter, except it is (b) a state-jail felony if the child was an intellectually disabled resident in a state-supported living center or the like, and the non-reporter knew the child suffered serious bodily injury as a result of the abuse or neglect; or (c) is a state-jail felony for a mandated professional who intended to conceal the abuse or neglect.  [Fam. Code § 261.109]  (2) Knowing falsehood with intent to deceive in a report is a state-jail felony on the first offense and third-degree felony thereafter, with a $1,000 fine and liability for attorney’s fees to the subject and civil damages to the state.   [Code Ann. § 261.107(a)]  (3) Employer retaliation against a professional for a mandated report in good faith is liable for reinstatement, back pay, actual and exemplary damages, court costs, and attorney’s fees.  [Code Ann. § 261.110]

WHAT:      In Texas abuse includes mental or emotional injury or impairment, physical injury, or failure to try to prevent it; sexual conduct, or failure to try to prevent it, or compelling or encouraging it; production of child porn or obscenity; drug abuse – collateral damage, or promoting abuse; sexual performance; trafficking for forced labor or services, or for sexual conduct; and forcing or coercing marriage. Neglect includes abandonment, situations creating an actual or risk of bodily injury; medical neglect; failing to provide; creating a risk of sexual conduct; or exposing to sexual conduct toward another child; failing to allow a child to return home; and institutional neglect.  [Code Ann. § 261.001(1),(4)]

Initial Screening Criteria: (a) whether the report alleges any of abuse, neglect, or risk of either; (b) severity of alleged harm; (c) immediacy of alleged harm; (d) additional priorities (sexual abuse, child’s death, risk of serious physical injury or immediate serious harm).  [Code Ann. § 261.3015(a),(b); Admin. Code tit. 40, §§ 700.479(b)]   

Reportable: (a) A parent, guardian, or (managing or possessory) conservator, expressly for abandonment. (b) A person responsible for a child’s care, custody, or welfare for any of the listed abuses, or for neglect through any of: situations with actual or risk of bodily injury; medical neglect; failing to provide; creating a risk of sexual conduct; or exposing to sexual conduct toward another child; failing to allow a child to return home; or institutional neglect. (c) Anyone for mental or emotional injury or impairment, physical injury, or failure to try to prevent it; sexual conduct, or failure to try to prevent it, or compelling or encouraging it; production of child porn or obscenity; drug abuse – collateral damage, or promoting abuse; sexual performance; trafficking for forced labor or services, or for sexual conduct; forcing or coercing marriage; or NEGLECT through any of: situations with actual or risk of bodily injury, creating a risk of sexual conduct, or exposing to sexual conduct toward another child.  [Code Ann. § 261.001(1),(4)]

·        Person responsible for a child's care, custody, or welfare means someone who would have that role traditionally, such as: (a) a parent, guardian, managing or possessory conservator, or foster parent; (b) family or household members (related or not), including former household members; (c) someone whom a parent lives with; (d) personnel or a volunteer at the child's school; (e) personnel or a volunteer at the child’s public or private child care facility or residential institution or facility; (f) an employee, volunteer, or other person under the supervision of a licensed or unlicensed child care facility, including a family home, residential child-care facility, or employer-based day-care facility, or shelter daycare facility.  [Code Ann. § 261.001(5)]

Child Abuse includes acts or omissions by a person:  [Code Ann. § 261.001(1)]   

(A)     Mental or emotional injury: to an extent that results in an observable material impairment in the child's growth, development, or psychological functioning;

(B)     Mental or emotional impairment: causing or permitting a situation where the child receives a mental or emotional injury that results in an observable material impairment in his/her growth, development, or psychological functioning;

(C)     Physical injury: to an extent resulting in substantial harm or genuine risk of such harm to the child; it includes any injury that is at variance with the explanation given.

                                 (1)      EXCEPTIONS: (a) an accident; and (b) reasonable discipline by a parent, guardian, or managing or possessory conservator that does not expose the child to a substantial risk of harm.

                                 (2)      PHYSICAL ABUSE BY ANOTHER CHILD (e.g., at a facility) means non-accidental physical injury that results in substantial harm and requires emergency medical treatment; staff who fail to try to prevent it are also guilty (see below).  [Code Ann. § 261.410(1)]

(D)     Failure to try to prevent physical injury: where another person’s action results in a physical injury, and the injury results in substantial harm to the child;

(E)     Sexual conduct that is harmful to a child's mental, emotional, or physical welfare, including crimes of: (a) continuous sexual abuse of a young child or children (two or more acts of sexual abuse within 30 days, with the same or different children); (b) indecency with a child (sexual contact or exposure by either the child or offender); (c) sexual assault (vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse with the child) or (d) aggravated sexual assault (the offender injures, threatens, intimidates, kidnaps, has a weapon, has a criminal associate, or drugs the victim, or the victim is under age 14).

                                 (1)      SEXUAL CONTACT means: (a) touching the child’s anus, breast, or genitals, through clothing or not, or (b) touching any body part of the child, through clothing or not, with someone else’s anus, breast, or genitals.  [Code Ann. § 21.11(c)] 

                                 (2)      SEXUAL CONDUCT means: (a) sexual contact; (b) actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, bestiality, masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse; or (c) lewd exhibition of the genitals, the anus, or any portion of the female breast below the top of the areola.  [Code Ann. § 43.25(a)(2)] 

                                 (3)      SEXUAL ABUSE BY ANOTHER CHILD (e.g., at a facility) means sexual conduct harmful to a child’s mental, emotional, or physical welfare; staff who fail to try to prevent it are also guilty (see below).  [Code Ann. § 261.410(2)]

                                 (4)      CONTEXT: THE AGE OF CONSENT is 17. Sex with a child age 13 or less is always a crime. Mistake-of-age is never a defense. Each rule that follows has an exception for an underage spouse. (a) A child age 14, 15, or 16 may consent to someone no more than 3 years older in age if neither is a registered sex offender. (b) An older partner who manipulates authority has no underage exception: public servants, current or past healthcare or mental health service providers, clergy, residential site employees, and reproductive service providers. (c) If a child age 15 or 16 consents to someone 4 years older, it is a crime for the partner but does not require sex offender registration  [Code Ann. § 22.011(a),(c),(e)]

                                 (5)      CONTEXT: INCEST is vaginal, oral, or anal intercourse, knowing the other person is (legitimately or not), one’s: (a) ancestor or descendent by blood or adoption; (b) current or former stepchild or stepparent; (c) parent’s brother or sister of whole or half blood; or (d) whole or half blood or by adoption: brother, sister, brother’s or sister’s child; or aunt’s or uncle’s child.  [Code Ann. 25.02(a)]

(F)     Compelling or encouraging sexual conduct by the child, including where the compulsion or encouragement is a crime of trafficking of persons, prostitution, or compelling prostitution.

(G)    Production of child porn or obscenity: causing, permitting, encouraging, engaging in, or allowing photographing, filming, or depiction of the child, knowing (or should know) that the resulting photo, film, or depiction is obscene or pornographic.

(H)    [Drug abuse – collateral damage] A person’s current use of a controlled substance in a way or degree that results in physical, mental, or emotional injury to the child;

(I)       [Promoting drug abuse] Causing, expressly permitting, or encouraging a child to use a controlled substance;

(J)      Sexual performance: causing, permitting, encouraging, engaging in, or allowing a sexual performance by a child.

                                 (1)      SEXUAL PERFORMANCE means any performance or part of it that includes sexual conduct by a child under age 18;  [Code Ann. § 43.25(a)(1)] 

(K)     Trafficking: knowingly causing, permitting, encouraging, engaging in, or allowing a child to be trafficked, or failing to try to prevent that, where in either case the trafficked child is for: (a) forced labor or services;  (b) benefit from those; (c) sexual conduct such as forms of: continuous sexual abuse, indecency, sexual assault, prostitution, promotion of prostitution, sexual performance, harmful employment (“massage” parlors), or possessing or promoting child porn; or (d) benefits from venture activities for that sexual conduct or engages in that sexual conduct with the trafficked child.

                                 (1)      TRAFFICKING means to transport, entice, recruit, harbor, provide, or otherwise obtain another person by any means.  [Code Ann. § 20A.01(a)(4)] 

                                 (2)      EXPLOITATION (e.g., at a facility) means: (a) a facility or program’s employee or volunteer or other worker (b) illegally or improperly uses a child or his/her resources for (c) monetary or personal benefit, profit, or gain.  [Code Ann. § 261.001(3); 261.405(a)(2)]

(L)      Marriage: forcing or coercing a child to enter into a marriage.

Neglect includes any of the following:  [Code Ann. § 261.001(4)]

(A)     Abandonment that leaves the child at risk: (a) a parent, guardian, or managing or possessory conservator (b) leaves the child exposed to a substantial risk of physical or mental harm in a situation, (c) without arranging for necessary care, and (d) demonstrates an intent NOT to return;

(B)     Any of the following acts or omissions by a person:

                                 (1)     Placing a child in – or failing to remove a child from – a situation that requires judgment or actions beyond his/her maturity level, physical condition, or mental abilities, resulting in his/her bodily injury or substantial risk of immediate harm.

                                 (2)     Failing to seek, obtain, or follow through with a child’s medical care, (a) resulting in or substantially risking death, disfigurement, or bodily injury; or (b) resulting in an observable material impairment to growth, development, or functioning.

                                 (3)     Failing to provide food, clothing, or shelter to sustain the child’s life or health;

(a)      CAVEAT: financial inability to provide is NOT neglect unless relief services had been offered and refused;

                                 (4)     Placing a child in – or failing to remove a child from – a situation that would expose him/her to a substantial risk of sexual conduct harmful to the child; or

                                 (5)     Placing a child in – or failing to remove a child from – a situation that would expose him/her to abuse of another child by acts or omissions, by any of: (a) harmful sexual conduct (continuous sexual abuse, sexual assault, or aggravated sexual assault; (b) failure to try to prevent harmful sexual conduct; (c) compelling or encouraging sexual conduct; (d) production of child porn or obscenity; or (e) sexual performance.   

(C)     Failure to allow a child to return home: where (a) the child has been absent for any reason, whether as a runaway or in residential placement; (b) the person responsible for a child's care, custody, or welfare will not permit the return; and (c) that person does not arrange for an alternative for the child; or

                                 (1)     CAVEAT: Even if a child must be in DFPS’s conservatorship, it is NOT neglect if a person responsible for the child refuses to let him/her remain at or return home, due to: (a) the child’s severe emotional disturbance; (b) inability to obtain mental health services for it; or (c) exhaustion of means to obtain the services.

(D)     Institutional neglect: (a) an employee, volunteer, or other individual working under the auspices of a facility or program has (b) a negligent act or omission such as non-compliance with an individual treatment plan, plan of care, or individualized service plan, that (c) causes or may cause substantial emotional harm, physical injury, or death to (d) a child served by the facility or program.