Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008

STOP CHILD ABUSE IN RESIDENTIAL PROGRAMS FOR TEENS ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - June 24, 2008)

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Mr. ROTHMAN. I thank our distinguished chairman.

Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the manager's amendment to the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act.

I want to begin by thanking our distinguished Chairman Miller and his wonderful staff, as well as the ranking member and his outstanding staff, for putting together this bipartisan bill and for working with me to incorporate two provisions into this manager's amendment that will strengthen accountability measures in the bill.

Specifically, my provisions direct programs such as these to notify parents of any reports of abuse as soon as possible but absolutely no later than 48 hours after the incident.

Parents have the right to know when their child is in danger, and this amendment ensures that parents are informed expeditiously of any reports of child abuse or neglect. This amendment would also strengthen accountability in this way: The bill creates a publicly searchable Web site that will contain information on these facilities such as death, reports of abuse, and violations of safety standards. My provisions require the Web site to disclose the cause of death.

This will help parents to make informed decisions about which residential facilities are safely caring for children as well as which have poor records on incidents of abuse and/or death.

It is a terrifying yet documented fact that such severe abuse occurs in these programs. The Government Accountability Office reports that precipitated this bill found that more than 1,600 cases of alleged abuse in 33 States occurred in 2005 alone. These alarming occurrences of cruelty and neglect must end, and this bill will establish new national safety standards and guidelines for private therapy facilities to reduce, if not eliminate, these incidents.

Again, I would like to thank Chairman Miller and his outstanding staff for all of his help in including my thoughts on this measure. I thank again the ranking member and his staff for making this a very important bipartisan measure that deserves the support of all of our colleagues.

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