Child Protection Investigations Reform Act

View the model as adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council.

People rarely exercise rights they don’t know they have. This is especially true in CPS investigations. Many CPS investigators take advantage of a parent’s ignorance of their legal rights to push them into “agreements” that might ultimately be against the family’s best interests. Parents unknowingly sacrifice their rights and expose their children to avoidable trauma at the hands of an over-reaching agency.

Meanwhile, because child welfare is often its own separate section of the legal code, sometimes even lawyers, unless they specialize in family law, can’t keep straight how the system is supposed to work.

Instead, CPS investigators should have to alert parents to their basic rights the moment an investigation is started. Parents facing an investigation should know their rights at the outset in order to better protect their parental decision-making for their child’s best interests.

This model, drafted by a bipartisan coalition of lawyers and family advocates, and adopted by ALEC in 2022, is ready to be modified to address this issue in your state.