Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 722.627b - Child fatality review team membership and obligations; advisory committee membership and obligations

Michigan requires each county in the state to form, either solely or jointly, a child fatality review team comprised of various government officials such as a community health department employee and a law enforcement officer. The child fatality team will review all child deaths that occur within the review team’s county.

The Family Independence Agency (“department”) must create an advisory committee comprised of various government officials, such as a county medical examiner and prosecuting attorney, for the purpose of recommending policies to prevent child fatalities.

The citizen review panel must investigate the deaths of children that occur under suspicion of child abuse or neglect if the child was in the court’s jurisdiction within 12 months of their death. The citizen review panel must create annual reports using child fatality data and information from the child fatality review teams. These reports must address (1) the total number, type, and cause of child fatalities; (2) the number of fatalities among foster children; (3) the number of instances where a child died within 5 years of a “family preservation or family reunification;” and (4) any trends identified in the data. The advisory committee will subsequently break down the information in these reports according to the areas represented by child fatality teams and submit the information as a final report to the department.

The information contained in the final department report is public information. Therefore, the advisory committee is prohibited from including any information that may identify an individual. Members of a committee or review team must keep confidential any information they obtain while conducting their duties; disclosure is only permissible to the department, a prosecutor’s office, the children’s ombudsman, another review team, or law enforcement.

The department must establish a publicly accessible child fatality registry that includes the following information: (1) the number of child fatalities that occurred among children involved in a court procedure related to child abuse or neglect; (2) the number of child fatalities that occurred due to abuse or neglect among children who’s parent had at least 1 child protective service complaint within the 2 years before the child’s death; (3) the total number of deaths that occurred pursuant to the previous categories within the prior year; and (4) “the child protective services disposition of the child fatality.”