§ 19-15-2.Protocol committee on child abuse; written protocol; training of members; written sexual abuse and exploitation protocol

Every Georgia county must have a written protocol — a detailed plan — for investigating and prosecuting alleged child abuse. This section creates the committee that writes it. The chief superior court judge of the circuit establishes the protocol committee, appoints an interim chairperson to run the first meeting, and fills vacancies. After that, the members elect their own chairperson, who is responsible for making sure all agencies follow the written procedures. In a judicial circuit with more than one county, the committee decides whether to set up a committee for each county or one for the whole circuit.

For a single-county committee, eleven officials or agencies each designate a representative: the sheriff, the county DFCS office, the district attorney, the presiding juvenile court judge, the chief magistrate, the board of education, the county mental health organization, the county police chief (where there is a county police department), the police chief of the largest city, the county public health department, and the coroner or medical examiner. A circuit-wide committee draws the same kinds of members from each county in the circuit, except that it has a single district attorney and a single city police chief, from the circuit’s largest municipality. A local child advocacy center and a sexual assault center each send a representative if one exists, and the chief judge adds someone from a local citizen or advocacy group focused on child abuse awareness and prevention. If an agency won’t take part, the chief judge may order it to, and disobeying the order is punishable as contempt.

The protocol must spell out how abuse cases are investigated and prosecuted and how treatment is coordinated for the perpetrator, the family and the child. It must cover abuse in households with violence between spouses, co-parents, parents and children, stepparents, foster families or others who live or lived together. It must say when law enforcement officers shall and shall not go with DFCS investigators, weighing the child’s protection against the report’s confidentiality; set up joint work between police and investigators; describe local prevention measures; and include a written section on sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, including how sexual assault examinations are obtained and paid for. The protocol can’t be inconsistent with DFCS policies. Its purpose is coordination among agencies, less stress for the child, and more effective treatment, including counseling.

The committee doesn’t disband once the protocol is written. It meets at least semiannually to evaluate and update it, and files the updated protocol with DFCS and the Office of the Child Advocate for the Protection of Children by September 1 each year. By July 1 each year it issues a report on how well the past 12 months of investigations followed the protocol; the report goes to the county governing authority, the fall term grand jury, the Office of the Child Advocate and the chief superior court judge. Each member must be trained, by the Office of the Child Advocate, within 12 months after appointment. The sexual abuse section creates no rights anyone can enforce at law and doesn’t limit a prosecutor’s discretion.