PART I. 
PURPOSE, CONSTRUCTION, DEFINITIONS



 



§587-1 Purpose; construction.  This
chapter creates within the jurisdiction of the family court a child protective
act to make paramount the safety and health of children who have been harmed or
are in life circumstances that threaten harm.  Furthermore, this chapter makes
provisions for the service, treatment, and permanent plans for these children
and their families.



The legislature finds that children deserve and
require competent, responsible parenting and safe, secure, loving, and
nurturing homes.  The legislature finds that children who have been harmed or
are threatened with harm are less likely than other children to realize their
full educational, vocational, and emotional potential, and become law-abiding,
productive, self-sufficient citizens, and are more likely to become involved
with the mental health system, the juvenile justice system, or the criminal
justice system, as well as become an economic burden on the State.  The
legislature finds that prompt identification, reporting, investigation,
services, treatment, adjudication, and disposition of cases involving children
who have been harmed or are threatened with harm are in the children's, their
families', and society's best interests because the children are defenseless,
exploitable, and vulnerable.  The legislature recognizes that many relatives
are willing and able to provide a nurturing and safe placement for children who
have been harmed or are threatened with harm.



The policy and purpose of this chapter is to
provide children with prompt and ample protection from the harms detailed
herein, with an opportunity for timely reconciliation with their families if
the families can provide safe family homes, and with timely and appropriate
service or permanent plans to ensure the safety of the child so they may
develop and mature into responsible, self-sufficient, law-abiding citizens. 
The service plan shall effectuate the child's remaining in the family home,
when the family home can be immediately made safe with services, or the child's
returning to a safe family home.  The service plan shall be carefully
formulated with the family in a timely manner.  Every reasonable opportunity
should be provided to help the child's legal custodian to succeed in remedying
the problems that put the child at substantial risk of being harmed in the
family home.  Each appropriate resource, public and private, family and friend,
should be considered and used to maximize the legal custodian's potential for
providing a safe family home for the child.  Full and careful consideration
shall be given to the religious, cultural, and ethnic values of the child's
legal custodian when service plans are being discussed and formulated.  Where
the court has determined, by clear and convincing evidence, that the child
cannot be returned to a safe family home, the child shall be permanently placed
in a timely manner.



The department's child protective services
provided under this chapter shall make every reasonable effort to be open, accessible,
and communicative to the persons affected in any manner by a child protective
proceeding; provided that the safety and best interests of the child under this
chapter shall not be endangered in the process.



This chapter shall be liberally construed to
serve the best interests of the children and the purposes set out in this
chapter. [L 1983, c 171, pt of §1; am L 1986, c 316, §1; am L 1992, c 190, §5;
am L 1998, c 134, §6; am L 2008, c 199, §3]



 



Note



 



  Authority of governor to modify chapter.  L 1983, c 171, §6.



 



Case Notes



 



  Legislature stated clear preference for keeping families
together if possible; department's failure to provide relative caretakers with
foster board payments paid to non-relative caretakers discouraged relatives
from becoming caretakers.  73 H. 15, 827 P.2d 1144.



  On issue of whether court's allowance of withdrawal of
consent to adoption under §578-2(f) will be for the child's best interest,
§571-46(1) and this section do not apply.  85 H. 165 (App.), 938 P.2d 1184.