CS/HB 1269 - Child Protection

• Creates a Statewide Medical Director for Child Protection position with responsibility for screening, employing, and terminating child protection team medical directors across 15 circuits statewide.

• Revises board certification requirements for child protection team medical directors, requiring board certification in pediatrics or family medicine with child abuse subspecialty certification within 2-4 years of employment.

• Requires Children's Medical Services to develop a standardized forensic interviewing protocol for abused children, with a task force including representatives from prosecutors, public defenders, pediatricians, law enforcement, and child advocacy centers; protocol due to legislature by July 1, 2018.

• Establishes sexual abuse treatment programs under Children's Medical Services to provide therapeutic services to child sexual abuse victims, siblings, non-offending caregivers, and affected family members.

• Clarifies expert witness testimony provisions to explicitly include criminal child abuse and neglect cases, dependency cases, and sexual battery of a child cases.

• Effective date: July 1, 2017.