Harrison County Blue Ribbon Committee presses for clarity on kinship, newborn drug policy and CPS reporting

Harrison County’s Blue Ribbon Committee on child protection discussed gaps in statewide practice for newborns who test positive for controlled substances, the implementation of a kinship-care statute, and technical problems with the child-protection reporting system during its meeting.

The committee’s facilitator read statutory language and noted mandatory-reporting responsibilities under state law, stressing that every person in the room is a mandated reporter. “All are mandated reporters for abuse and neglect… I’m glad to know that that we’re all in this room mandatory reporters,” the facilitator said.

Members focused heavily on how local courts and agencies interpret Mississippi statutes governing removal of children and the evidentiary “nexus” required when a newborn tests positive for drugs other than marijuana. The committee asked the board of supervisors and the county attorney to pursue a formal legal opinion after members described different practices across counties — some jurisdictions, members said, take infants into custody based on a positive test plus other risk factors while others move to custody on a positive test alone.

Judge Alfonso described how social media helped locate a missing child in another case and urged a local alert system for at-risk children that the committee is calling “Baby DJ Law.” “Thirty seconds of me looking on Facebook. I knew where he was. I knew what he looked like,” Judge Alfonso said as committee members discussed drafting a local resolution to back a local- or private-bill approach if a statewide statute cannot be rapidly enacted.

Committee members also discussed a workplan for kinship care: whether caregivers who informally house children (for example, grandmothers providing guardianship) will qualify for the new kinship funding or whether the statute applies only after a formal custody finding. A staff member told the committee the protocol is still being established and suggested an anticipated effective date around June or July, but funding availability was repeatedly noted as “if funded” and not guaranteed.

Hospital reporting and data integrity of CPS filings were another focus. Memorial Hospital Biloxi provided a monthly report showing a decline in April CPS reports from 24 last year to 13 this year, which the committee discussed as part of a request for hospitals to maintain logs of CPS referrals and share them with the committee. Committee members described specific instances where protective-service alerts and interagency communications had broken down, and they asked staff to obtain the name and rollout date of a promised statewide CPS filing system.

On formal committee business, members moved and seconded a set of routine items. Beth Casey moved to accept the minutes (seconded by Dr. Caldwell); the motion was made on the record. The committee also moved to accept the resignation of Kim Haney (motion by Beth Casey; second by Lauren). A member later moved, and another seconded, to consider an executive session on a sensitive confidentiality matter and the group prepared to vote on convening that session. The transcript records motions and seconds but does not include a roll-call vote tally.

Committee members requested a written legal opinion to reconcile differing judicial interpretations of the law on newborn drug exposure and removal across counties and asked staff to follow up with the attorney general’s office and local judges. They scheduled a workshop with County Commissioner Andrea Sanders for June 20 to address outstanding questions and to make that meeting open to the public.

The committee closed by asking hospitals and agencies to keep logs and forward monthly CPS-referral information, and by assigning staff follow-up to obtain the new CPS filing-system name and rollout schedule. The committee planned to reconvene with additional information and possible formal recommendations to the Harrison County Board of Supervisors.