The House Human Services Committee voted Friday to approve the child protection reform bill.
The preliminary vote was 10-0, but the committee is holding the vote open until next week so that the absent member, Rep. Chip Troiano, D-East Hardwick, can cast his vote.
Through S.9, the Legislature is trying to make adjustments to the state’s child protection system. The bill tries to improve communication between different players involved in child protection cases, and to put the focus of the system on the best interest of children.
Lawmakers convened a summer committee that took testimony on child protection around the state following the deaths of two toddlers who had had contact with the Department for Children and Families last year.
Human Services was the first House committee to work on the legislation since it passed over from the Senate last month. From there, the bill will go to the House Judiciary Committee.
Notably, the Human Services Committee removed language that the Senate had approved that would have created a new crime of failure to protect a child, with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. The crime was one of the more contentious aspects of the bill, drawing concerns that babysitters and social workers might be at risk of prosecution.
Rep. Ann Pugh, D-South Burlington, the committee chair, said Friday that the committee felt that the language could be replaced by strengthening existing laws, including penalties for mandatory reporters, cruelty to a child and neglect of duty by public officers.
The committee also directed DCF to put a strategy in place by September for monitoring children who have been returned to their parents for six months after reunification.