HF 1826 Summary

• Requires social services agencies to interview children age 4 and older separately from and prior to interviewing adults when a child is in foster care, unless exceptional documented circumstances warrant otherwise.

• Prohibits advance notice to caregivers for initial home visits during child maltreatment assessments and investigations, except in exceptional documented circumstances.

• Establishes "standard fact-finding protocol" for family assessments and investigations that includes gathering information on the reported allegation, patterns of behavior, harm to child, parental protective capacities, child vulnerability factors, family resilience, and instances when the child is safe.

• Requires the commissioner of human services to develop and distribute training guidance by March 1, 2022 on conducting trauma-informed, culturally sensitive interviews with children and on implementing standard fact-finding protocol.

• Requires detailed documentation of family assessment findings in case records with sufficient specificity about relationships between household adults and children and events each child experienced.