Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Child Protection topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Catawba County accepts child-protection team report, approves single-county designation
Summary
Catawba County commissioners accepted the Community Child Protection & Child Fatality Prevention Team annual report, approved priorities including safe-sleep education and prenatal care, and designated Catawba County as a single-county Local Team under state changes effective July 1, 2025.
Catawba County commissioners on May 5 accepted the statutorily required annual report from the Community Child Protection & Fatality Prevention Team and approved the group's priorities and submittal of required information to the State.
Jessica Ford, Child Protective Services program manager for Catawba County Social Services, and Marianne Vogel, public health nursing supervisor, presented the report and summarized recent data showing a small increase in intake reports but declines in accepted reports and substance-affected infant reports. The presenters said the county received 2,716 CPS reports in 2024 involving 5,413 children, accepted 1,902 reports for investigation or assessment and accepted 101 reports involving substance-affected infants. They said children in foster care as of Dec. 31, 2024 numbered 195, up from 187 the prior year.
The presenters outlined changes driven by the 2023 Appropriations Act that will consolidate CCPTs and CFPTs into one Local Team starting July 1, 2025, require use of the National Fatality Review - Case Reporting System (NFR-CRS), and clarify which child deaths the local team must review. County staff recommended that Catawba remain a single-county Local Team under the new structure.
Commissioner Barbara Beatty moved that the Board accept the report, approve the priorities, authorize submittal to the State, and designate Catawba County as a single-county Local Team. The motion carried unanimously.
The report listed past and planned prevention efforts including safe-sleep education, distribution of 18 Pack 'n Play sleep yards to CPS-involved families, trauma-resilience workshops, and community presentations on abuse-prevention curricula. County staff said priorities for 2025 include continued focus on infant safe sleep and early prenatal care, attention to infant and teen deaths related to illegal substances, and strengthening guidance on mandatory reporting laws.
The Board’s action was procedural acceptance of the report and did not impose new policy beyond the statutory designation and approval to transmit required materials to the State.
