Chapter 2: Reporting & Investigating Suspected Child Abuse & Child Neglect

In this chapter. . .

This chapter covers the reporting and investigating of suspected child abuse or neglect under the Child Protection Law, MCL 722.621 et seq. It discusses the individuals who are required to report suspected child abuse or child neglect, the required procedures for and limitations on the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) when conducting investigations of child abuse or child neglect, and the DHHS’s required actions following an investigation. It addresses the DHHS’s access to confidential information during its investigations as well as the DHHS’s required maintenance and accessibility of its central registry.¹

This chapter also covers a child’s death while under a court’s jurisdiction, and the civil and criminal immunity available under Michigan law applicable to child abuse or child neglect cases.

2.1General Overview of the Child Protection Law

The Child Protection Law, MCL 722.621 et seq., governs reporting and investigating suspected child abuse and child neglect, and provides for or requires the filing of petitions to initiate child protective proceedings under the Juvenile Code, MCL 712A.1 et seq.² Under the Child Protection Law, a child is “an individual under 18 years of age.” MCL 722.622(f).

The Child Protection Law defines child abuse as “harm or threatened harm to a child’s health or welfare that occurs through nonaccidental physical or mental injury, sexual abuse,^[³] sexual exploitation,^[⁴] or maltreatment, by a parent, a legal guardian, any other person responsible for the child’s health or welfare, a teacher, a teacher’s aide, a member of the clergy, or an individual 18 years of age or older who is involved with a youth program.”⁵ MCL 722.622(g).

The Child Protection Law defines child neglect as “harm or threatened harm to a child’s health or welfare by a parent, legal guardian, or any other person responsible for the child’s health or welfare that occurs through either of the following:

(i) Negligent treatment, including the failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, or medical care, though financially able to do so, or by the failure to seek financial or other reasonable means to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter, or medical care.

(ii) Placing a child at an unreasonable risk to the child’s health or welfare by failure of the parent, legal guardian, or other person responsible for the child’s health or welfare to intervene to eliminate that risk when that person is able to do so and has, or should have, knowledge of the risk.” MCL 722.622(k).

The definitions of child abuse and child neglect within the Child Protection Law should be construed to exclude harms not expressly listed in those definitions. Michigan Ass’n of Intermediate Special Ed Administrators v DSS, 207 Mich App 491 (1994) (Court of Appeals refused to give the term “mental injury” in the definition of “child abuse” an expansive reading to include educational abuse or neglect).

A.Person Responsible for Child’s Health or Welfare

A “‘[p]erson responsible for the child’s health or welfare’ means a parent, legal guardian, individual 18 years of age or older who resides for any length of time in the same home in which the child resides,^[⁶]or, except when used in [MCL 722.627(1)(e) or MCL 722.628(8)⁷], nonparent adult; or an owner, operator, volunteer, or employee of 1 or more of the following:

(i) A licensed or registered child care organization.^[⁸]

(ii) A licensed or unlicensed adult foster care family home or adult foster care small group home as defined in . . . MCL 400.703 .

(iii) A court-operated facility as approved under . . . MCL 400.14.” MCL 722.622(cc).

Note: A nonparent adult is “a person who is 18 years of age or older and who, regardless of the person’s domicile, meets all of the following criteria in relation to a child:

(i) Has substantial and regular contact with the child.

(ii) Has a close personal relationship with the child’s parent or with a person responsible for the child’s health or welfare.

(iii) Is not the child’s parent or a person otherwise related to the child by blood or affinity to the third degree.” MCL 722.622(aa). See also MCR 3.903(C)(7), which contains substantially similar language.

A foster parent is a person responsible for his or her foster child’s health or welfare as contemplated by MCL 722.622(cc).⁹ Spikes v Banks, 231 Mich App 341, 351 (1998).

B.Religious Exemptions Under Child Protection Law

“A parent or guardian legitimately practicing his religious beliefs who thereby does not provide specified medical treatment for a child, for that reason alone shall not be considered a negligent parent or guardian. This section shall not preclude a court from ordering the provision of medical services or nonmedical remedial services recognized by state law to a child where the child’s health requires it nor does it abrogate the responsibility of a person required to report child abuse or neglect.”¹⁰ MCL 722.634 .

“[T]he word ‘legitimately’ modifies the word ‘practicing.’” In re Piland (Piland III), 336 Mich App 713, 727 (2021). The proper inquiry into the issue of a parent’s religious beliefs regarding his or her decisions involving a minor’s medical care is whether the parent was “‘legitimately practicing’” a religious belief. Id. “[I]n order to be ‘legitimately practicing’ his or her religious beliefs, the parent or guardian must have been actually practicing his or her religious beliefs at the time that he or she did not provide his or her child with specified medical treatment.” Id.

“MCL 722.634 applies to child protective proceedings. . . . [I]n a proceeding under MCL 712A.2(b)(1), the availability of an instruction based on MCL 722.634 does not depend on whether the respondents’ failure to provide specified medical treatment for a child is characterized as an act of neglect or an act of refusal[; rather] . . . the respondents’ entitlement to a jury instruction based on MCL 722.634 depends on the evidence that is ultimately presented at the respondents’ adjudication trial. . . . [T]he trial court must provide an instruction that is consistent with MCL 722.634 if such an instruction is requested by the respondents and if a rational view of the evidence supports the conclusion that the failure to provide medical treatment was based on the respondents’ legitimate practice of their religious beliefs.” In re Piland (Piland II), 503 Mich 1032 (2019), aff’ing in part, vacating in part 324 Mich App 337 (2018). On the respondent’s appeal of the trial court’s refusal on remand to deliver the jury instruction required by MCL 722.634 , the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court’s decision was error, reversal was required, and remand to the trial court was proper. Piland III, 336 Mich App at 729-732.

In remanding the case to the trial court, the Court instructed that the legitimate exercise of a religious belief means “that the parent or guardian’s reason for not providing treatment cannot be a false or spurious reason.” Piland III, 336 Mich App at 735. The Court noted that “the record contain[ed] substantial evidence showing that respondents[‘] actual practice of their religious beliefs was the reason they did not seek medical treatment for [the child], a rational view of the evidence supported the jury instruction and the trial court erred by not giving it.” Id.

C.Safe Families for Children Act

The Safe Families for Children Act, MCL 722.1551 et seq., permits “a parent or guardian of a minor child^[¹¹] [to] temporarily delegate to another person his or her powers regarding care, custody, or property of the minor child[.]” ¹²^, ¹³ MCL 722.1555(1). The act of “[a] parent or guardian executing a power of attorney does not, by itself, constitute evidence of abandonment, child abuse, child neglect, delinquency, or other maltreatment of a minor child unless the parent or guardian fails to take custody of the minor child when a power of attorney expires.” MCL 722.1565(1). The Safe Families for Children Act does not, however, “prevent or delay an investigation of child abuse, child neglect, abandonment, delinquency, or other mistreatment of a minor child.” Id. For more information on evidentiary issues in child protective proceedings, see Chapter 11. For information on the procedures and requirements under the Act, see the Safe Families for Children Act, MCL 722.1551 et seq.

¹ “‘Central registry’ means a repository of names of individuals who are identified as perpetrators related to a central registry case in the [DHHS’s] statewide electronic case management system.” MCL 722.622(c). See MCL 722.622(t), which defines department as “the [DHHS].”

³ MCL 722.622(q) defines confirmed sexual abuse as “a confirmed case that involves sexual penetration, sexual contact, attempted sexual penetration, or assault with intent to penetrate as those terms are defined in . . . MCL 750.520a .” Confirmed case “means the [DHHS] has determined, by a preponderance of evidence, that child abuse or child neglect occurred by a person responsible for the child’s health, welfare, or care.” MCL 722.622(n).

⁴ MCL 722.622(r) defines confirmed sexual exploitation as “a confirmed case that involves allowing, permitting, or encouraging a child to engage in prostitution, or allowing, permitting, encouraging, or engaging in the photographing, filming, or depicting of a child engaged in a listed sexual act as that term is defined in . . . MCL 750.145c .”MCL 750.145c .” Confirmed case “means the [DHHS] has determined, by a preponderance of evidence, that child abuse or child neglect occurred by a person responsible for the child’s health, welfare, or care.” MCL 722.622(n).

⁵ MCL 7 22.622(z) defines member of the clergy as “a priest, minister, rabbi, Christian science practitioner, spiritual leader, or other religious practitioner, or similar functionary of a church, temple, spiritual community, or recognized religious body, denomination, or organization.”

⁶ Persons who reside in the child’s home may include “live-in adult friends of the parent or foster parent, adult siblings and relatives, roomers, boarders, live-in sitters, housekeepers, etc.” DHHS’s Children Protective Services Manual (PSM), Department Responsibilities and Operational Definitions PSM 711-5, p 1, Note: The link to this resource was created using Perma.cc and directs the reader to an archived record of the page.

⁷ MCL 722.627(1)(e) pertains to accessing the DHHS’s central registry, and MCL 722.628(8) pertains to the DHHS interviewing a child at his or her school or other institution.

⁸ “‘Child care organization’ means that term as defined in . . . MCL 722.111 .” MCL 722.622(h). MCL 722.111(b) defines a child care organization as “a governmental or nongovernmental organization having as its principal function receiving minor children for care, maintenance, training, and supervision, notwithstanding that educational instruction may be given. Child care organization includes organizations commonly described as child caring institutions, child placing agencies, children’s camps, children’s campsites, children’s therapeutic group homes, child care centers, day care centers, nursery schools, parent cooperative preschools, foster homes, group homes, or child care homes.”

¹⁰ See also MCL 722.127 (DHHS rules governing child care organizations may not authorize or require medical examination, immunization, or treatment of any child whose parent objects on religious grounds).

¹¹ For purposes of the Safe Families for Children Act, minor child is “an individual less than 18 years of age.” MCL 722.1553(f).

¹² “A parent or guardian cannot delegate, under this act, his or her power to consent to adoption of the minor child, consent to an abortion or inducement of an abortion to be performed on or for the minor child, or to terminate parental rights to the minor child.” MCL 722.1555(1). “A parent is not authorized to consent to the marriage of a child who is under the legal age of marriage.” Id.

¹³ “The parent or guardian executing a power of attorney may revoke or withdraw the power of attorney at any time.” MCL 722.1555(2).