Attorney Paula Werme warns parents to watch out for the “neglect charge” on her Tips and Tricks page. What the heck is she talking about? Well, in the State of New Hampshire, our Child Protection Statute, RSA 169-c, allows for two avenues, abuse or neglect. Abuse can be a little more black and white – there are four different types of abuse listed in the current law: Sexual abuse, Intentionally physically injured, Psychologically injured and Physically injured by other than accidental means. I think that sexual abuse and intentional physical abuse are fairly straight forward. psychologically injured is sometimes more difficult to prove, and physically injured by other than accidental means simply means that while you might not have intended to send your son to the hospital when you kicked him with a steel toed boot, he did end up with injuries.
Now that we have an understanding of abuse, lets move on to neglect. Our law states that a child has been neglected if one of three things happen: (1) they have been abandoned, (2) they are “without proper parental care or control… necessary for their physical, mental or emotional health, and when it is established that their health has suffered or is very likely to suffer serious impairment, and this deprivation is not due primarily to lack of financial means” or (3) their parent is “unable to discharge their responsibilities because of incarceration, hospitalization or other physical or mental incapacity”. So what does this mean? Well, it means if the child was abandoned, even for one night, then this law says the parent is at fault. If the child’s health “has suffered or is likely to suffer serious impairment”, then the parent is at fault. Finally, if the parent is in prison, hospitalized, or has some other incapacity, and have not made arrangements for their child, then they are at fault.
So, Attorney Werme warns parents to be aware of the “neglect charge”. For example, DCYF might receive a report stating that a father has sexually abused his 6 year old daughter. DCYF would first look to this girl’s mother to protect her from future abuse. We generally ask that the alleged victim not have contact with the alleged perpetrator until we are able to interview the child (usually the same day, or the following day). If our investigation turns up evidence that this allegation might be true, then we would ask this girl’s mother to continue protecting her daughter. If this mother refused to believe these allegations, if she chose to believe her husband or boyfriend over her daughter, then DCYF would be forced to take action against this mother. Why? Because this mother would have placed her daughter into a situation where she might be sexually abused again. Under New Hampshire State Law, this would cause the little girl to be “without proper parental care and control”.
Do we always file neglect charges against a parent who has not committed any abuse? Most definitely no. We follow the letter of the law – if our laws say that a parent has neglected their child, then we bring this information to Court and allow a Justice to make the decision. If a parent protects their child, (meaning they provide their child with “proper parental care and control”) then we do not file charges against that parent. However, if DCYF is able to prove that there is a potentially dangerous environment for a child, we trust that child’s parent(s) to protect him or her. If they choose not to protect their child, then the law is designed so that DCYF can step in and do the protecting.
child protection, neglect, DCYF, Paula Werme, child abuse, child neglect
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