Child protective investigations can cause real harm to children, particularly when they occur because family members fighting for custody make false reports of child maltreatment. As attorneys at The Children’s Law Center (CLC), we frequently see such false reports. When parents make those reports to the child protective hotline, they trigger mandatory investigations by the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), which ensnare children in a web of child protective and law enforcement systems, and often undermine children’s well-being rather than protect it.
Unfortunately, S.902B/A.2479A, legislation intended to fight false reports to the New York State child protective hotline, known officially as the Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment (SCR), was not passed during the final days of this year’s State legislative session, which ended earlier this month.
