By admin 
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — The North Carolina House on Wednesday unanimously approved a child welfare reform bill named after a 6-year-old Mecklenburg County girl whose death sparked outrage and renewed scrutiny of the state’s child protection system.
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The Dominique Moody Safety Act (SB 280) would create a statewide review team for high-risk child welfare cases, expand training for social workers, increase oversight of abuse and neglect investigations, and require greater transparency from state agencies. The bill would also create a public dashboard that would track child welfare performance, including information like response times, investigations, and near-fatalities.
“The goal here is to pick up on patterns of behavior and flag activities or lack of activities before it has a negative or detrimental impact on a child,” said state Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Nash), the bill’s sponsor.
Investigators said Dominique Moody was starved, abused and kept in a dog cage for nearly two years before her death in December, a few weeks before her 7th birthday. She weighed just 27 pounds.
State Rep. Carla Cunningham (U-Mecklenburg) cited more than 50 calls to 911 and multiple reports to social services involving Dominique before her death.
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“The Dominique Moody Safety Act is more than a response to one heartbreaking case. It is a comprehensive effort to strengthen North Carolina’s child welfare system by improving coordination, accountability, training and oversight,” she said.
Under the bill, the Department of Health and Human Services would establish a Child Welfare Case Escalation Team to review cases involving children considered at high risk because of extensive child protective services histories, repeated allegations of abuse or neglect, domestic violence concerns or other significant warning signs.
“It recognizes that when children repeatedly come to the attention of child protective services, those reports should not always be viewed as an isolated incident. Patterns matter. History matters. Repeated concerns matter,” said Cunningham.
The bill passed the House unanimously and now returns to the Senate for consideration of House changes.
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