Legislation Tracker

The Preventing Restraints in Youth Transport Act bars youth transportation companies (businesses that specialize in taking youth to residential programs) from using blindfolds, hoods, or other visual impairment; handcuffs, chains, irons, straitjackets, or other mechanical restraints; and holds or other physical force on a youth whose final destination is a youth residential treatment program. Physical restraint is allowed only when staff are trained in it, there is a substantial likelihood of imminent serious physical harm to the youth or others, no less restrictive alternative will work, and only for as long as that risk lasts.

The act also bars these companies from picking up a youth between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. (transporting during those hours is still allowed).

"Youth residential treatment program" is defined broadly: wilderness and outdoor programs, boot camps, therapeutic and education boarding schools, behavior modification programs, residential treatment centers, qualified residential treatment programs (QRTPs), psychiatric residential treatment facilities, group homes, intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities, and residential alternatives to incarceration, when they serve youth with emotional, behavioral, mental health, substance use, or developmental disabilities. Licensed hospitals and foster family homes are excluded.

Violations carry a civil fine of up to $1,000, collected by the county prosecutor or the Attorney General; an action may be filed up to 10 years after the violation. Part of a Michigan package on abusive youth transport, publicly backed by Paris Hilton.

The Safe Passage for Youth Act expands California's regulation of transport escort services that accompany or transport minors to residential, behavioral, or treatment programs, whether the destination is in-state or out-of-state. It requires trustline registration and safety training for transporters, written parental consent, restricts use of restraint to imminent-harm situations, and gives the Attorney General enforcement authority against repeated or egregious violators.

When a county welfare agency substantiates a report of abuse or neglect of a child in foster care, congregate care, or another out-of-home placement, or removes a child from such a placement, it must notify the attorney representing the child's parent or guardian in dependency court (within 36 hours), and the attorneys for other children in the same placement. For an Indian child, the child's tribe must also be notified. The notice leaves out the identity of the person who made the report and other confidential details. Does not apply to a parent whose parental rights have been terminated.

H.5629 is the conference committee report on child welfare legislation (reported on H.4646). It was accepted unanimously by the House (157-0) and Senate (40-0) on July 31, 2026, and became Chapter 179 of the Acts of 2026.

The act writes a bill of rights for children in the custody or care of the Department of Children and Families into law. It covers safety (freedom from abuse, neglect and exploitation, privacy, adequate food and clothing, placement in the least restrictive appropriate setting, and not being held in a Department of Youth Services secure placement because no foster home is available), family and sibling contact, identity, health care, school stability, and access to case information and hearings. A child who believes these rights were violated may go to the department's ombudsman, file a grievance, or complain to the Office of the Child Advocate, and the department may not retaliate.

The Office of the Child Advocate becomes an independent state agency not under the control of any executive office. Its duties expand to include examining disproportionality and systemwide problems across agencies, and it gains a youth engagement program that must hold at least four listening sessions a year in congregate care settings, including group homes, residential schools and community-based acute treatment programs, and publish an annual report. The act also creates state and local child fatality review teams, expands DCF's reporting (including children waiting in emergency departments and psychiatric units for placements), and bars shackling children in child requiring assistance proceedings.

HB 4966, which may be cited as the SECURE Act, amends the Children and Family Services Act, the Child Care Act of 1969 and the Juvenile Court Act of 1987 to set duties for the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) toward youth in its care, with particular attention to youth placed outside Illinois.

For youth placed in other states, including in out-of-state residential treatment centers, the law requires ongoing contact and monitoring by Illinois-based caseworkers, assessment and monitoring of minors in out-of-state placements, protection of the youth's access to lawful health care, and supportive care, licensing and contract compliance requirements for out-of-state providers. It sets rules for DCFS, service providers and caregivers to prevent harmful treatment of youth based on protected characteristics, and requires DCFS to protect a child's sensitive identity information (sexual orientation) from unnecessary disclosure.

The law also adds public transparency and accountability reporting by DCFS, lets the Inspector General recommend steps to remediate harm done to a youth by conduct that violated the youth's protected characteristics, and adds Juvenile Court Act provisions on direct case management, care or placement violations. As introduced, the bill also included annual reports on out-of-state placements, performance audits and a private right of action; the enacted version replaced the bill's text by amendment.

HB 52 would have given a minor undergoing evaluation or inpatient treatment at a psychiatric hospital the right to at least two cumulative hours each week of confidential telephone or video communication with a parent, legal guardian or another approved adult, unless prohibited by law or court order or considered therapeutically unadvisable by the professional in charge. The hospital would have to facilitate it.

Psychiatric hospitals would have to notify the Department of Health in writing of each use of seclusion or chemical, mechanical or physical restraint on a minor, and notify the department and the minor's parent or guardian within 72 hours, naming the medication used for any chemical restraint. The bill defined chemical restraint as medication used to control behavior or restrict movement, not ongoing treatment of a psychiatric illness.

The Department of Health would have to make at least two unannounced inspections a year of each psychiatric hospital where a minor spent more than three nights in the preceding year, interviewing at least half of the minor patients without hospital staff present unless the department asked for staff for safety. It would publish an annual report by November 1 on seclusion and restraint at each hospital, inspection findings, and the number of minors in residential psychiatric care, including data from the Department of Family and Community Services on minors in state custody placed in in-state and out-of-state psychiatric hospitals and how long they stayed. The act would have taken effect July 1, 2027.

Act 136 makes a set of changes to programs run or overseen by the Vermont Department for Children and Families (DCF). It removes the asset limit in the Reach Up program, limits DCF's use of foster children's Social Security benefits, and creates an unaccompanied youth certificate that lets a youth without a parent or guardian obtain certain services on their own.

The act requires DCF to take reasonable measures to transport children in its custody in a way that prevents physical and psychological harm. If restraint is necessary during transport, soft restraints must be used unless safety requires otherwise. Restraint used during transport must be documented and reported to the General Assembly.

Programs operated by or under contract with DCF may not use or authorize prone restraints, mechanical restraints, chemical restraints or strip searches on a child, with limited exceptions. Seclusion and physical restraint may not be used for punishment, discipline or protection of property, only as a safety measure of last resort or to prevent serious and imminent harm. The act sets documentation, supervision and notice rules for any seclusion or restraint. Beginning July 1, 2028, these seclusion and restraint restrictions also apply to out-of-state programs under contract with DCF.

The act also creates a Parental Engagement and Family Support Working Group to study DCF's use of a pregnancy calendar. It has multiple effective dates beginning June 15, 2026.

Would remove the discretionary authority of Ohio's behavioral health licensing agency over youth residential treatment facilities and instead mandate state intervention, requiring the agency to suspend admissions, deny license renewals, or shut down a facility once serious violations are documented. Introduced by Rep. Crystal Lett following a Marshall Project investigation into escalating violence and staff injuries at Mohican Young Star Academy (Empowering to Elevate Academy) in Perrysville, Ohio.

The bill would exempt children in foster care placed in a qualified residential treatment program (QRTP) from Medicaid's exclusion for institutions for mental diseases (IMDs). It amends section 1905(a) of the Social Security Act so that Medicaid can pay for services to a foster child in a QRTP, whether or not Title IV-E foster care payments are made on the child's behalf.

The change would apply to items and services furnished in calendar quarters beginning on or after October 1, 2026. QRTPs are the residential settings defined by the Family First Prevention Services Act that can receive federal foster care payments beyond two weeks.

Adds four sections to Idaho's child care licensing law (Title 39, Chapter 12) for licensed children's residential care facilities.

Quality of care oversight (39-1210A): the Department of Health and Welfare must make an annual unannounced inspection of every licensed residential facility, plus more after substantiated complaints, serious incidents, prior deficiencies or patterns of noncompliance, and must hold confidential in-person interviews with residents and staff chosen by the department alone (facility staff may not pick who is interviewed). Violations found are grounds for corrective plans, sanctions, or referral to the child abuse hotline or police.

Service planning (39-1210B): facilities must document a child's condition and diagnosis at intake, write an individualized service plan within 30 days, update it every 90 days, and write a discharge summary within 7 days of discharge.

Youth bill of rights (39-1225): the department must publish rights covering safety, medical and behavioral health care, contact with family, lawyers and advocates, privacy, education and recreation, freedom from abuse, neglect and unreasonable restraint, and grievances without retaliation. Facilities must post it, give and explain it to each child and parent at admission, and let children reach the child abuse hotline privately and unmonitored. Retaliation is a licensing violation.

Critical incidents (39-1226): facilities must report to the department and to the parent, guardian or placing agency by the next business day any death, suicide attempt or serious self-harm, restraint, seclusion or emergency safety intervention, denied or delayed medical care, hospital trip, abuse allegation, arrest, runaway, or similar event, and keep an incident log for inspectors. The department must review the reports and publish substantiated findings and enforcement actions.

Omnibus human-services bill: tightens DHS authority to impose license conditions on residential and long-term care facilities after immediate-jeopardy findings, requires a model consent form for in-room electronic monitoring, creates a differentiated payment rate for developmental-disability direct support professionals who live with clients, adds narrow exceptions to out-of-state child-placement limits (with a required DHS escort), and bars finding abuse of a child in care based solely on a lapsed restraint/seclusion training certification.

Would have substantially rewritten Oregon's definition of abuse of a child in care to explicitly cover child-caring agencies, developmental disabilities residential facilities, proctor, certified, and adjudicated youth foster homes, and their staff, contractors, and volunteers, including restraint and seclusion violations, financial exploitation, and sexual abuse. Also would have reformed child-caring-agency licensing and out-of-state placement rules. Never reached a floor vote before the short session ended.

HB 4042 would have expanded the types of adverse licensing actions the Department of Human Services may take against child-caring agencies following certain findings, while also modifying restraint provisions for children in care and creating exceptions to placement limitations. It passed the House during Oregon's 2026 short session but died at the Senate President's desk when the session adjourned.

HB 2241 would let a child care facility or organization register with a "qualified association" in place of getting a child care license from the state. A qualified association must have existed for at least 20 years, publish and enforce written standards for the care of children and file them with the Children's Division, and have a board able to oversee its members. Registered facilities would file annual forms with the association and receive a free two-year certificate once they meet the association's requirements and local or state fire, safety, health, sanitation and personnel screening rules.

A registered facility could apply to the Children's Division to accept foster children, and the Division could place children there if the facility reports on the children in its care and shows it follows the Division's rules. Each child would need a written contract covering services, costs, discipline and consent to medical care.

The bill would also create a 13-member Child Protection Board in the Department of Social Services to oversee registered facilities and to independently review Children's Division decisions a facility could be aggrieved by, including substantiated findings of abuse or neglect. The Division could deny, suspend or revoke a facility's registration, with appeal to the Administrative Hearing Commission. A facility holding a state license could not operate under this section. Staff would be subject to background checks.

HB 5085 would have required private alternative adolescent residential or outdoor programs in West Virginia to be licensed by the Office of Health Facility Licensure and Certification within the Office of the Inspector General. A program is defined as a structured private residential setting for youth with emotional, behavioral or learning problems who have struggled at home or in less structured settings. Scouting and 4-H, academic-only boarding schools, vocational programs, recreational and faith-related camps, and schools that are an adjunct ministry of a church are excluded.

Staff with direct access to youth would need fingerprint-based criminal and child protection background checks. Rules would have to require reporting any medical, chemical or physical restraint or seclusion within one business day, written policies including suicide prevention, state review of program policies, and a publicly posted complaint process to the state and law enforcement.

Licensed programs could not use physical discipline or its threat, deprive youth of basic necessities or education, admit youth outside their licensed age or conditions, or sexually abuse, exploit or harass youth. They would have to allow parents to remove a youth, facilitate weekly confidential video calls with family, and provide a fixed telephone to the child abuse hotline available 24 hours a day. Operating without a license or violating the article would be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, up to 90 days in jail, or both, with each day a separate offense.

S937 would amend New York's Social Services Law (section 488 and a new section 498) to bar any program, agency or facility funded, operated, licensed or approved by the state, a state agency or a political subdivision from using aversive conditioning on vulnerable persons. Aversive conditioning includes any procedure that causes obvious signs of physical pain, such as hitting, pinching and electric shock.

The bill also bars physical punishment that would not be permitted on non-vulnerable persons, and denying reasonable sleep, shelter, bedding, bathroom facilities or any other aspect of a humane existence. It applies regardless of where the conduct happens or where the affected person lives, which reaches out-of-state facilities that receive New York placements or funding. Students with existing individualized education programs may complete them as long as prohibited practices are not used.

The sponsor's memo says only one U.S. facility still uses electric shock devices and that most children sent there come from New York. The bill takes effect 60 days after becoming law.

Wyden's response to the Senate Finance Committee's two-year investigation, "Warehouses of Neglect: How Taxpayers Are Funding Systemic Abuse in Youth Residential Treatment Facilities." Released December 18, 2025 as a discussion draft; the draft text leaves the bill number and committee blank, so there is no Congress.gov tracking page yet.

Title I invests in alternatives to residential care: a 90 percent federal Medicaid match for intensive home and community-based mental health and substance use services for youth under 21, a higher Title IV-E match for kinship foster care, adoption and guardianship, peer support grants for kinship caregivers, a CMS study of care navigation so community services are exhausted before a child is placed in a residential treatment facility, reinvestment of fraud and abuse recoveries from these facilities into community care, and workforce and student loan support for behavioral health providers.

Title II strengthens oversight: a uniform reporting system for youth residential treatment facilities, annual state surveys, Medicaid and CHIP conditions of participation that are reevaluated every year, records and facility access for protection and advocacy systems, state licensure requirements, Court Improvement Program education about these facilities, a GAO study of provider marketing practices and inducements, and an HHS-OIG study of out-of-state placements.

Title III raises the floor for care: staffing and supervision requirements (at least one licensed mental or behavioral health provider on site 12 hours a day and on call 24/7), education requirements, a GAO study of evidence-based practices, legal representation for every youth in foster care, and student loan repayment for child advocates.

HB 1577 would add section 724.1 to Pennsylvania's Human Services Code to limit restrictive procedures in facilities where children are held because of dependency or delinquency, including children's institutions, youth development centers and camps. Chemical, manual and mechanical restraints, seclusion, exclusion, strip searches and body cavity searches could be used only as a last resort to protect a child from a serious and immediate risk of physical harm, and never for punishment, retaliation, convenience or staffing shortages. Misuse would be grounds for a full investigation, including a criminal investigation, and license revocation.

Manual restraints would have to follow a department-approved model, end as soon as the risk ends, and include checks on the child every ten minutes; prone restraints are not used. A cool-down or time-out is not solitary confinement only if it is limited to three hours with staff nearby, and longer restriction must be reported to the department and the Office of Child Advocate. Strip searches require probable cause and authorization, must be done by two same-gender staff, and body cavity searches only by outside medical providers; every search must be documented and reported.

The Department of Human Services would set standards protecting children's rights to privacy, mail, phone calls, family visits and education, make announced and unannounced day and night inspections, keep a public record of confirmed unsafe or inhumane care, and could revoke licenses, withhold state money or refer matters for prosecution. Facilities would need evidence-based program models and incentive-focused discipline plans, children and families would get a confidential grievance process, and the department would publish quarterly data on seclusion, restraint and searches broken down by race, gender, ethnicity, sending county and disability. The act would take effect in 60 days.

Authorizes Oregon DHS to revoke, suspend, or impose conditions on the license, certificate, or endorsement of an agency providing community-based services to individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities if the agency is deemed unqualified. Specifies disqualifying conditions such as staff on the federal excluded-provider list, denying inspectors access to records or clients, tampering with records, repeated serious health and safety violations, financial fraud, or leadership with a history of license revocation or Medicaid fraud.

HB 3835, requested by DHS and the System of Care Advisory Council, would have redefined what counts as abusive restraint/seclusion of a child in care, changed how DHS investigates and responds to abuse reports, modified DHS's regulatory and enforcement authority over child-caring agencies, allowed DHS to place children with out-of-state agencies under certain circumstances, and exempted secure medical transport from some licensing rules. Disability-rights advocates opposed it as weakening child-abuse protections and oversight.

SB 1113 would have tightened restrictions on the use of restraint and involuntary seclusion on children in care (including in public education programs and secure transportation), defined abusive restraint/seclusion, modified how DHS investigates and substantiates abuse and neglect, expanded DHS's authority to impose civil penalties and other regulatory actions against child-caring entities, and set new limits on out-of-state placements of children in care.

SB 1112 would have restricted when DHS can admit a child in its own care or custody to inpatient or residential treatment: only after an in-person medical-necessity evaluation by a licensed health professional, only at an OHA-licensed/certified facility, only with Medicaid authorization, and generally only when the child has an ongoing foster placement to return to. It set additional conditions for out-of-state hospital admissions and clarified that such admissions do not count as a placement or change the child's foster-care status.

SB 1069 would have created new application requirements for any provider seeking a license, certificate, endorsement, or authorization from DHS to serve children, older adults, or individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities, including child-caring agencies. It required DHS to notify applicants of incomplete or noncompliant applications, barred reapplication for one year after a revocation or denial, and required DHS to report to the legislature on application processing times and costs.

SB 989 would have let a parent or guardian admit a minor child, with or without the child's consent, to an inpatient treatment facility licensed by the Oregon Health Authority or DHS for a mental, emotional, behavioral health, or substance use condition. It required an initial clinical assessment and periodic reviews to justify continued admission, barred facilities from refusing admission solely because a child withheld consent, and gave children age 14 and older a process to request review of the admission decision.

Would have repealed Oregon statutes that allowed a court to order a person into a facility against their will solely on the basis of having an intellectual or developmental disability, along with related habilitation-detention provisions. Also would have prohibited any public body from denying mental illness services to a person on the grounds that the person also has an intellectual disability. Died in committee without a vote.

SB 191 creates a new licensed facility type in Montana, the residential treatment center: a facility that offers primary mental health services, assessment, counseling, skilled nursing, medication management, co-occurring substance use disorder treatment and behavioral health treatment in a residential setting 24 hours a day to youth under 19 whose mental health needs are not met in other settings. Residential treatment centers are added to the list of health care facilities under Title 50, chapter 5.

DPHHS must license these centers and adopt rules on staff-to-patient ratios, staff qualifications and training, required treatment services, insurance, fingerprint background checks for anyone with regular access to patients (including volunteers and contractors), written policies including suicide prevention, and abuse and neglect reporting. The department must align the requirements with those for private alternative adolescent residential or outdoor programs (52-2-805 and 52-2-810, MCA). Centers must be accredited by a body approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; a facility applying for accreditation may receive provisional licenses of six months each, for no more than one year in total.

The bill also makes residential treatment centers qualifying facilities for state funding of an appropriate educational opportunity for children placed there for treatment of a serious emotional disturbance.

Regulates youth transportation companies, defined as businesses that specialize in transporting a child to a residential child care program. For this law a residential child care program includes wilderness or outdoor programs, boot camps, educational or therapeutic boarding schools and behavioral modification programs that serve children with an emotional, behavioral or mental health disorder, a substance use disorder, or an intellectual, developmental, physical or sensory disability. Hospitals, detention and youth correctional facilities, substance abuse treatment facilities, licensed foster homes and other secure facilities are excluded.

When the final destination is a residential child care program, a transport company may not use blindfolds, hoods or other visual impairment, or mechanical restraints such as handcuffs, chains, irons, straitjackets or cloth, leather or plastic restraints. Physical restraints and holds are allowed only when there is a substantial likelihood of imminent serious physical harm to the child or others and no less restrictive alternative, only for as long as that risk persists, only by staff trained in restraint, and never as punishment, for convenience or as a substitute for supervision. Companies may not pick up a child between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., except companies under contract with the Department of Human Services.

The Attorney General may sue for injunctive relief and statutory damages up to $1,000 for a first offense and $3,000 for a later one. The child may sue for restitution, compensatory damages, statutory damages up to $500 per violation and attorney's fees, within 10 years after reaching the age of majority. The law applies only to transports on or after October 1, 2025.

Act 636 moves the licensing and regulation of psychiatric residential treatment facilities (PRTFs) from the Child Welfare Agency Review Board to the Department of Human Services, where PRTFs are treated as long-term care facilities under the Office of Long-Term Care. It defines a PRTF as a standalone, nonhospital facility with an Arkansas Medicaid provider agreement serving people under 21, accredited by The Joint Commission or a comparable body, meeting the federal conditions of participation, with every resident meeting federal certification-of-need rules. A state survey of a PRTF covers all residents whatever their state or payer.

The act makes an exception to the moratorium on new residential care beds. The Health Services Permit Agency must add to permitted PRTF capacity beds already licensed by the Child Welfare Agency Review Board but not permitted, and beds fully built by January 1, 2025, up to 900 additional beds in total. New PRTF construction and renovations over $250,000 need prior approval, any change in the total number of authorized beds goes to the Legislative Council, and beds used for out-of-state clients count toward capacity.

Beds may not be licensed under the new structure until the Office of Long-Term Care issues a certification manual and Arkansas Medicaid issues a provider manual, and providers have one year to set up a continuum of care defined by the Department. The emergency clause states that permitted but unlicensed PRTF beds could not be used for children who need them.

SB 325 would amend the Alabama Youth Residential Facility Abuse Prevention Act, which requires certain youth residential facilities to register with the State Department of Human Resources. Facilities would have to register within 60 days of opening, renew every year by December 31, and give more information when registering.

Facilities would have to keep certain records on participants and disclose them in certain circumstances, with reports made public within six months (names, birth dates and Social Security numbers redacted) and kept public for at least five years. Each facility would have to keep video surveillance in all common areas and keep recordings for at least 30 days, longer when a recording shows a reportable incident or a crime.

On a complaint of abuse or neglect, law enforcement would speak with the youth in person and schedule a forensic interview when possible; refusing an officer's lawful request in such an investigation would be a Class B misdemeanor. Courts would impose civil penalties of $10,000 to $50,000 per violation of the act, and the Department could instead give a facility up to 15 days to correct a violation; fines and notices would be made public.

SB 817 would have created a new article of West Virginia code (16B-22) requiring every private alternative adolescent residential or outdoor program to hold an annual license from the Office of Health Facility Licensure and Certification within the Office of the Inspector General. The committee substitute defines a program to include wilderness or outdoor programs, boot camps modeled on military or correctional regimes, and education or therapeutic boarding schools. It exempts scouting and 4-H, academic-only boarding schools, vocational programs, recreational and faith-related camps, and schools that are an adjunct ministry of a church.

Staff with direct access to youth would need fingerprint-based criminal and child protection background checks. Rules would have to require reporting any chemical, physical, mechanical or environmental restraint or seclusion within one business day, suicide-prevention policies, a public complaint process, a licensing fee, and procedures for critical incidents (self-harm, restraint, denied medical care, abuse allegations, forced or deceptive transport, police reports and unsafe conditions).

Licensed programs could not use physical discipline or its threat, deprive youth of basic necessities or education, or sexually abuse, exploit or harass youth. They would have to let parents remove a youth, allow weekly confidential and unsupervised video calls with family, and provide a fixed telephone to the child abuse hotline available 24 hours a day. Operating without a license or violating the article would be a misdemeanor (fine up to $1,500, up to 90 days in jail, each day a separate offense); the Director could also deny or revoke licenses, order closure in cases of immediate danger, and impose civil penalties up to $10,000.

Establishes a Congregate Care Advisory Committee, creates a congregate care ombudsman, and creates the Licensed Provider Civil Money Penalty Fund. Imposes new requirements on congregate care programs, including adopting admissions criteria, maintaining a list of authorized contacts for children in crisis, notifying authorized contacts and parents when a child is in crisis, posting notice of the ombudsman, and providing a dedicated phone line to reach the ombudsman at any time.

The Supporting America's Children and Families Act reauthorizes federal child welfare programs under Title IV-B of the Social Security Act and makes changes to child support enforcement. This record covers Section 114.

Section 114 requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services, within 2 years of enactment and in consultation with the Department of Education, the Administration for Children and Families, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Administration for Community Living and the Department of Justice, to issue or update guidance to state child welfare agencies on three subjects: best practices for collecting data and sharing information on the well-being of youth in residential treatment facilities, including facilities that operate in several states or take youth from out of state; improving state collection and sharing of data on maltreatment of youth in residential treatment facilities; and improving oversight of youth residential programs that receive federal funding, with research-based risk assessment strategies for the health, safety and well-being of youth in those facilities.

Section 114 follows nearly word for word the PARISH Act (Promoting Accountability, Reporting, Information Sharing, and Health Act, H.R. 8817, Reps. Greg Steube and Jimmy Panetta), introduced June 25, 2024, which did not move on its own. The enacted version allows 2 years instead of 1 and adds the Administration for Community Living.

The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to contract, within 45 days of enactment, with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for a study of youth in youth residential programs. The National Academies must issue a report within 3 years and every 2 years after that for 10 years, made public and sent to state agencies.

The reports must identify the nature, prevalence and causes of child abuse, neglect and deaths in these programs; all federal and state funding sources; federal data sources; existing state regulation, including alternative licensing standards and licensing exemptions; and accreditation standards. They must recommend better data coordination, better oversight of programs that receive federal funding, risk assessment tools (including on seclusion and restraint), training for professionals, ways to eliminate physical, mechanical and chemical restraint and seclusion, community-based alternatives, and how outcome data such as length of stay, restraint use and discharge setting should be shared.

"Youth residential program" covers each location of a public or private program serving youth under 22 with emotional, behavioral or mental health disorders, substance use disorders, or disabilities, including wilderness programs, boot camps, therapeutic boarding schools, behavior modification programs, residential treatment centers, qualified residential treatment programs, psychiatric residential treatment facilities, group homes, intermediate care facilities, and residential alternatives to incarceration. State-licensed hospitals and licensed foster family homes are excluded. The National Academies must consult people who lived in these programs, among others.

The House companion bill, H.R. 2955 (Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Buddy Carter), had 115 cosponsors but did not move; the Senate bill became law.

Known as the Accountability in Children's Treatment Act, this bipartisan bill (sponsored by Paris Hilton's 11:11 Media Impact) requires California's short-term residential therapeutic programs (STRTPs) to notify a child's parent, guardian, or tribal representative whenever restraint or seclusion is used on them, and to provide written incident descriptions within seven days. It also directs the Department of Social Services to publish a public dashboard of restraint/seclusion incidents, investigations, and licensing actions starting January 1, 2026.

SB 169 sets requirements for child caring institutions, group homes and other residential child care facilities licensed by the Indiana Department of Child Services. It puts into state law personnel rules, including minimum qualifications for classes of employees and the keeping of personnel records, and limits on caseworker caseloads (generally no more than 18 children, fewer for children who need enhanced supervision).

Facilities must get health records, immunizations and examinations for each child, keep a health record for each child, and follow set steps for medical care. Psychotropic medication may be given only as prescribed by an Indiana licensed professional responsible for the child's diagnosis and treatment, and the facility must get a written report from the prescriber at least every 35 days for each child receiving it.

For the child abuse and neglect law (IC 31-33), the act counts as a child a person who is 18, 19 or 20 and lives, or has lived, at a residential facility licensed by the Department, so abuse and neglect of those young adults is reported and investigated as it is for minors.

Would have banned the seclusion of students in public education programs, changed the definitions of "seclusion" and "involuntary seclusion" for certain children, and clarified the reporting and training rules for restraint and seclusion in public education programs. Referred to the Senate Education Committee, it died there without a hearing when the 2023 session ended.

AB 136 adds every qualified residential treatment program (QRTP), as defined in federal law (42 U.S.C. 672(k)(4)), to Nevada's definition of a child care institution, regardless of how many children it serves. Before the bill, a child care institution had to serve 16 or more children.

As a result, an operator of a QRTP serving fewer than 16 children must obtain a child care institution license from the Division of Public and Behavioral Health, and governmental entities in Nevada may receive federal funding toward the cost of placing children in these programs. A QRTP already licensed as a child care facility, or operating and caring for fewer than five children, on or before January 1, 2024 could continue without the new license until July 1, 2024.

The bill also updates the description of services a child care institution may provide to refer to children with an emotional disturbance as defined in NRS 433B.045. The licensing change took effect January 1, 2024.

HB 218 amended Montana's licensing law for private alternative adolescent residential or outdoor programs (52-2-805 and 52-2-810, MCA). It requires DPHHS to adopt rules, including a procedure for programs to report any medical, chemical or physical restraint or seclusion to the department within one business day, written policies including suicide prevention, department review and approval of program policies, and a complaint procedure, with each program publicly posting how to complain to the department and law enforcement.

A licensed program may not use physical discipline or the threat of it as punishment, deterrent or incentive; deprive a youth of a basic necessity or inherent right, including education; admit a youth outside the ages or conditions its license allows; or sexually abuse, exploit or harass a youth. A program must allow a parent or guardian to remove a youth, facilitate weekly confidential video communication between a youth and parents, guardians or foster parents unless law or court order prohibits it, and provide a fixed telephone to the DPHHS child abuse hotline available to youth 24 hours a day.

Inspections change from at least once every three years to twice a year, and the semiannual inspections must be unannounced. Department staff must interview at least half of the enrolled youth at each inspection without program staff present, and all program records are open to the department at reasonable times.

Starting January 1, 2024, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) investigates reports of child abuse or neglect at substance use disorder treatment facilities, entities that provide behavioral health services on a residential basis, residential private schools and host homes, and makes a finding. Facilities must share records relevant to the investigation, and DCYF sends its report and finding to the facility and to the state agency that licenses, oversees or accredits it.

Starting July 1, 2025, the living accommodations of residential private schools (nonpublic schools approved by the State Board of Education that provide sleeping and living facilities for students) must be licensed by DCYF. DCYF adopts minimum health and safety rules for noninstructional hours, covering sleeping space, privacy, storage, nutrition, cleanliness, social-emotional well-being, health accommodations, disability access and physical safety. A school is exempt if the State Board of Education finds it is accredited by an approved body whose accreditation covers living accommodations comparably.

DCYF must give the Legislature a preliminary report on licensing and oversight of residential private schools by July 1, 2025 and a final report by July 1, 2026.

SB 239 amends Utah's licensing law for congregate care programs (Title 62A, chapter 2). It requires any youth transportation company, meaning anyone who transports a child for payment to or from a congregate care program in Utah, to register with the Office of Licensing and pay a registration fee. Relatives, state agencies and a program's own employees moving a child from and back to their own program are excluded. Individuals who transport children for these companies must pass a background check.

It is a class A misdemeanor to offer, pay, solicit or receive any commission, bonus, kickback, bribe, rebate or split fee in exchange for referring someone to a youth transportation company.

Congregate care programs must facilitate weekly confidential voice-to-voice communication between a child and the child's parents, guardian, foster parents and siblings, subject to listed exceptions, and may not use family contact as an incentive or withhold it as a punishment. The bill also modifies the definition of congregate care program and removes the requirement that restraint and seclusion procedures align with industry standards.

Defines and restricts prohibited restraint and seclusion practices (chemical, mechanical, prone, supine, and others) used on children in Oregon's care in foster homes, child-caring agencies, and developmental disabilities residential facilities. Requires programs to establish incident procedures whenever restraint or seclusion is used, and mandates reportable-injury and quarterly reporting to DHS.

SB 2323 adds Section 4e to the Children and Family Services Act. It bars the use of chemical, manual and mechanical restraints on youth in the care or protective custody of the Department of Children and Family Services during any transportation the Department provides or arranges, including through its contractors. Child passenger seats and devices a youth ordinarily wears for medical reasons are not counted as restraints, and emergency ambulance trips and non-emergency transfers between hospitals are not covered.

Any known, alleged or suspected violation must be reported at once to the Department's Inspector General, the court hearing the youth's case, and the youth's attorney and guardian ad litem, and counts as a significant event that requires a report.

The Department must write an individualized trauma-sensitive transportation plan when a youth is moved to or from a psychiatric hospital or residential treatment center, when the caseworker or clinical team sees a need, or when a court orders one. Moves to an out-of-state residential treatment center, moves out of one to another facility, and in-state moves from a psychiatric hospital to a residential treatment center taking more than three hours need written approval from two Department chief deputy directors and court approval. The plan covers route and timing, the youth's clinical and medical condition, de-escalation steps that work for the youth, and a caseworker or mental health professional known to the youth who goes along. The Juvenile Court Act lists the factors a court weighs in approving a plan.

AB 153 is a 2021 human services budget trailer bill. Among its provisions, it generally prohibits placing California foster youth, nonminor dependents and wards of the juvenile court in out-of-state residential facilities. Placements made before July 1, 2022 were allowed only if listed criteria were met, including that the facility was certified by the State Department of Social Services or exempt from certification.

From July 1, 2022, the department may not certify new out-of-state residential facilities or seek approval of new placements in them by county child welfare agencies or probation departments, and a county may place a child out of state only if specified criteria are met and it seeks a child-specific certification of the facility. The department had to decertify all out-of-state residential facilities on January 1, 2023 and ensure all children and youth had been returned to California by that date. It must report monthly, starting September 1, 2021, the number of children placed out of state under the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, and every six months from January 1, 2022 more detailed data on those children.

The bill also conforms California's short-term residential therapeutic program rules to the federal Family First Prevention Services Act, including assessments by a qualified individual of placements in these programs or out-of-state facilities, juvenile court review of the placements, nursing staff availability, and at least six months of family-based aftercare after discharge from a short-term residential therapeutic program or an out-of-state facility.

Enacts the Residential Care Facility Notification Act, requiring previously exempt faith-based residential care facilities and private boarding schools to register with the state, undergo background checks and safety inspections, and submit to state oversight.

Required Oregon DHS to notify, by October 1, 2021, every child or ward it had placed in an out-of-state residential facility between January 1, 2016 and June 30, 2020 of their right to seek civil remedies, along with facility and parent-company identifying information. DHS was also required to proactively obtain and retain for 20 years each child's facility records, including incident, injury, abuse-allegation, and restraint/seclusion records, and report progress to the Legislature.

The bill S.B. 127 updates Utah’s laws governing human services programs—especially congregate care—by strengthening oversight, refining definitions, and increasing accountability. It expands and clarifies terms such as human services program, congregate care program, youth program, and direct access, ensuring clearer regulatory coverage. It requires programs to report restraints, seclusion, and other critical incidents within one business day and mandates the Office of Licensing to review policies, post complaint information, investigate concerns, and conduct quarterly inspections, including at least two unannounced visits each year. The bill restricts harmful practices by prohibiting pain‑inducing techniques, humiliating punishments, peer restraints, physical punishment, denial of basic needs, and forced exercise, while requiring programs to maintain written policies, use trained staff, continuously monitor any restraint or seclusion, and document and review each incident. It also requires suicide‑prevention policies, prohibits sex‑ or gender‑based discrimination, and significantly expands background‑check requirements for staff, contractors, and others with direct access to vulnerable populations, including fingerprinting and national registry checks. Finally, the bill updates licensing procedures, emergency planning, record‑keeping, and rulemaking authority, resulting in greater transparency, safety, and regulatory consistency across Utah’s human services system.

Would have authorized Wisconsin's Department of Children and Families to certify residential care centers, group homes, or shelter care facilities as Qualified Residential Treatment Programs (QRTPs) eligible for federal Title IV-E funding, and directed DCF to promulgate implementing rules under an expedited process. The bill never passed; comparable authority was granted two years later via 2021 Wisconsin Act 42.

SB 267 ended Montana's Board of Private Alternative Adolescent Residential or Outdoor Programs and moved licensing of these programs to the Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS). A program is a private alternative adolescent residential or outdoor program that provides a structured residential setting for youth with emotional, behavioral or learning problems. Programs licensed or regulated under other state titles, scouting and 4-H type programs, academic-only boarding schools, vocational programs, recreational and faith youth camps, and schools that are an adjunct ministry of a Montana church are excluded.

No one may operate a program without a DPHHS license. Licenses last up to three years (only for programs with no noticed deficiencies), provisional licenses up to six months. Applicants must submit fingerprints of everyone with direct access to participants for state and FBI criminal and child-protection background checks, and must carry insurance set by rule. DPHHS adopts health and safety rules, publishes each licensee's name and contact information, may deny, suspend or revoke licenses, and must inspect each program on application and each licensed program at least once every three years.

Operating without a license is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, and DPHHS may refer unlicensed programs for prosecution or seek an injunction. Existing board licenses and rules carried over until they expired or DPHHS adopted its own rules.

HB 500 would have amended New Mexico's Public Health Act to bring programs for at-risk youth under licensing by the Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD). A program for at-risk youth was defined as a residential, wilderness or boot camp program serving children or youth with a behavioral health condition, emotional disturbance or disruptive behaviors, or who have had or are at risk of involvement in the juvenile justice system.

These programs would have been added to the list of health facilities that may not operate without a license, putting them under CYFD's licensing, inspection and rulemaking authority. The bill also extended to programs for at-risk youth, licensed or not, CYFD's power to act when there are reasonable grounds to believe a child is in imminent danger of abuse or neglect, including consulting the operator and, after notice and an opportunity for a hearing, suspending the program's operation.

The Family First Prevention Services Act was enacted as Title VII of Division E of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. Besides funding prevention services that keep children out of foster care, it limits federal Title IV-E foster care payments for children placed in group or institutional settings rather than foster family homes.

After a child's first two weeks in a child-care institution, the federal government stops paying the state's foster care maintenance costs unless the setting is a qualified residential treatment program (QRTP), a setting for pregnant or parenting youth, a supervised independent living setting for youth 18 and older, or a setting for youth who are or are at risk of becoming sex trafficking victims. A QRTP must use a trauma-informed treatment model, have licensed nursing and clinical staff available 24 hours a day, involve the family in treatment, provide at least 6 months of aftercare after discharge, and be licensed and accredited by CARF, the Joint Commission, COA or another approved nonprofit accreditor.

For each QRTP placement, a qualified individual must assess within 30 days whether the child's needs can be met with family or in a foster family home, and a court must approve or disapprove the placement within 60 days. If the assessment is late, no federal payment is made for the placement; if the placement is not approved, payments stop 30 days later. States must report on children placed outside foster family homes, including those in QRTPs for more than 12 consecutive months, and must run criminal records and child abuse registry checks on adults working in child-care institutions. The placement limits took effect October 1, 2019, with an option for states to delay up to 2 years.

Enacted as Chapter 257, Oregon Laws 2017 (creating ORS 419A.240 and 419A.245). Prohibits instruments of physical restraint (handcuffs, chains, straitjackets, and similar) on youth during juvenile court proceedings unless the court makes written findings of an immediate and serious risk with no less restrictive alternative, and bars restraining a youth to a stationary object or another person. Also restricts restraints during DHS/OHA transportation of wards and children, requiring a documented transportation safety plan, trained staff, and prohibiting restraint use as punishment, for convenience, or as a substitute for supervision.

The Alabama Youth Residential Facility Abuse Prevention Act requires religious, faith-based, church, other nonprofit and for-profit youth residential facilities that house children for more than 24 hours, including private alternative boarding schools, private alternative outdoor programs and community treatment, transitional care, long-term residential and social rehabilitation facilities, to register with the State Department of Human Resources beginning January 1, 2018. Many of these programs had been exempt from state licensing. No such program may operate without a current registration.

Registered programs must keep a written plan of operation, notify the Department within 48 hours when a child arrives, keep one staff member for every four youths, admit only children 12 and older, describe their programs accurately to families, use licensed providers for any mental health or substance abuse services, carry at least $500,000 in insurance per incident, put their registration number in advertising, and report deaths and accidents needing medical care to the Department and law enforcement. Staff must pass criminal background and child abuse and neglect checks before working and every year after.

The act bars secure containment and manual or mechanical restraints, and bars practices meant to abuse, humiliate, degrade or isolate a child. It lists rights for each child, including contact with parents, freedom from abuse, corporal punishment and excessive medication, a grievance process without retaliation, and the parents' right to remove the child at any time. The Department may charge fees and civil penalties. The act does not let the state regulate religious services that meet these requirements.

Chapter 2013-219 tightened Florida's rules for boarding schools, which are exempt from licensing as residential child-caring agencies. A boarding school must be registered with the Department of Education and accredited for both academic and residential programs by named accrediting bodies. Existing schools and new schools seeking accreditation have three years from registration to complete accreditation, must file annual accreditation status reports until accredited, and are removed from Department of Education registration if they do not show an accreditation application within 270 days.

A boarding school that cannot document its accreditation, is not registered, or has not obtained accreditation is treated as providing residential group care without a license, and the Department of Children and Families may impose administrative sanctions or seek civil remedies. Employees and contractors with unsupervised access to students must pass level 2 background screening. Schools must follow normal school schedules with holiday and summer breaks; students (other than foreign students) must go home during breaks and may not live there year-round, and parents keep custody.

For religious facilities registered through a qualified association under s. 409.176 instead of licensed, the association must notify DCF within 24 hours of a violation that threatens a child and within 3 days if a facility keeps caring for children without registration or a license. The association must report annually the number of registered Type II facilities, their names, addresses and administrators, and the number of children each served; DCF may fine the association up to $250 per violation. The act also made health program appropriations (one vetoed) and changed law enforcement and hotline notice duties under s. 39.201.

The third version of the bill. It would have required HHS to set minimum standards for every location of a covered program, meaning a public or private residential program serving children unrelated to its owner or operator and focused on children with emotional, behavioral or mental health problems or alcohol or substance abuse problems.

HHS would have investigated reports of abuse and neglect, published information on each covered program, run a national toll-free complaint hotline, and set civil penalties, with referral to the Attorney General. States receiving Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act grants would have had to adopt policies preventing abuse in covered programs, and HHS would have studied outcomes for children in these programs.

Sen. Tom Harkin introduced the same bill in the Senate as S. 1667 on the same day. Neither bill received committee action.

A reintroduction of the 2008 bill. It would have required HHS to set minimum standards for every location of a covered program: a public or private residential program serving children unrelated to its owner or operator, focused on children with emotional, behavioral or mental health problems or alcohol or substance abuse problems.

HHS would have had to investigate reports of child abuse and neglect, publish information on each covered program on public websites, run a national toll-free complaint hotline, and set civil penalties for violations, with referral of violations to the Attorney General, who could also sue on their own initiative.

The bill would also have tied Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act grants to state policies preventing abuse in covered programs, authorized funding for FY2010-FY2014, and required an HHS study of outcomes for children in covered programs. The House Education and Labor Committee ordered it reported 32-10 before the floor vote.

The bill would have required the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families at HHS to set minimum standards for every location of a covered program affecting interstate commerce. A covered program is a public or private residential program that serves children unrelated to its owner or operator and focuses on children with emotional, behavioral or mental health problems or alcohol or substance abuse problems.

HHS would have had to run an ongoing process for investigating reports of child abuse and neglect, set up public websites with information on each covered program and a national toll-free hotline for complaints, and establish civil penalties for violations. Violations not remedied would be referred to the Attorney General, who could also sue on their own initiative.

The bill would have added Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act grant conditions requiring states to adopt policies to prevent abuse and neglect in covered programs, authorized funding for FY2009-FY2013, and required an HHS study of outcomes for children in public and private covered programs.