In some states, a team of experts investigates every unexpected death of a child under 18. In others, no law requires the state to review any child’s death.
Colorado is one of 22 states in the latter group, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and Denver Post research.
“I definitely think, and the academy believes, that all states should have (a law),” said Dr. Robert Block, chairman of the academy’s child abuse and neglect committee. “The whole idea of a child death review panel is to prevent child deaths.”
In Colorado, two panels have been created to review child deaths. One that looked at all deaths was suspended in 2002 by budget cuts and questions about its legal status. It has begun meeting again, but with a reduced scope, and its records are confidential.
The other, a child fatality review team at the Department of Human Services, focuses its efforts on child abuse deaths in families previously involved with child protection agencies. Its reports are public, but in many cases, it has not produced reports.
The pediatrics academy sees three benefits to child death review laws.
“One is to identify system failures,” Block said.
Second, “you can correct the record. We most often see that in children thought to have died of sudden infant death syndrome,” where evidence of a traumatic injury was missed, Block said.
Third, “it teaches individuals how they or their agencies can better respond in the future.”
In Oklahoma, Block’s home state, the Child Death Review Board examines the deaths of almost all children under 18 not witnessed by doctors, and a state law requires “a specific case review” whenever the cause “may be related to abuse or neglect of a child.”
Requirements vary from state to state. The academy says Alaska, Illinois, Kentucky, New York and South Dakota require investigations when children die from abuse or in state custody. Some states require investigations of all child deaths, others only of young children or SIDS deaths. The academy lists a majority of states as having laws requiring investigations of at least some child deaths.
Colorado is not among them.
In its model legislation, the academy recommends an independent panel drawn from medical, human services, law enforcement and other professions.
In Colorado, the 12-member child fatality review team consists mainly of state Department of Human Services employees and the county agencies they supervise, but includes a pediatrician.
Christine Ellertson, a lawyer for the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center who died this month, said Colorado needs an independent, fully funded and well-staffed child fatality team, with a medical examiner, specially trained social workers, police, pediatricians and a district attorney.
“Right now, there is no set way to do these investigations and some fatality reports are so scanty on information, they are almost useless,” she said. “State laws would help to make sure that they got done.”
Department of Human Services Director Marva Hammons said law enforcement agencies already investigate suspicious deaths and her department reviews abuse deaths when child protection agencies were previously involved with the family.
But a law requiring child death investigations “might allow other agencies to have their records as open as ours,” she said.
