Rhode Island Code of Regulations
Title 214 - DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES
Chapter 20 - Child Protective Services
Subchapter 00 - N/A
Part 1 - Child Protective Services
Section 214-RICR-20-00-1.5 - Definitions
Current through March 25, 2025
A. "Caregiver" means a parent or legal guardian or other person responsible for the child's welfare, as defined in § 1.5(K) of this Part.
B. "Child abuse and neglect (CA/N)" means a child whose physical or mental health or welfare is harmed, or threatened with harm, when his or her parent or other person responsible for his or her welfare:
C. "Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC)" refers to a range of crimes and activities involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a child for the financial benefit of any person or in exchange for anything of value (including monetary and non-monetary benefits) given or received by any person.
D. "CPI" means the Department's Field Child Protective Investigator.
E. "CPS" means the Department's Child Protective Services division.
F. "CPS Hotline" means the Department's Child Protective Services Hotline that provides a statewide, toll-free phone number to receive child abuse and neglect (CA/N) reports 24 hours per day, seven (7) days per week.
G. "Department" means Rhode Island's Department of Children, Youth and Families.
H. "Fatality" means the death of any child in which child abuse or neglect is suspected to be a contributing factor.
I. "Medically indicated treatment" means the treatment, including appropriate nutrition, hydration and medication, which, in the treating physician/nurse practitioner's reasonable medical judgment, will be most likely to be effective in ameliorating or correcting the infant or child's medical illness or life-threatening condition.
J. "Near Fatality" means that a child was placed in serious or critical condition as the result of an act of abuse or neglect. The child being placed in serious or critical condition must be classified by the treating physician, and reflected in the medical chart. The treating physician's determination that the child is in "serious or critical condition" is accepted without further assessment by the Department.
K. "Person responsible for the child's welfare" means the child's parent or guardian, any individual, eighteen (18) years of age or older, who resides in the home of a parent or guardian and has unsupervised access to a child, a foster parent (relative or non-relative), an employee of a public or private residential home or facility or any staff person providing out-of-home care, which includes family child care, group child care and center-based child care.
L. "Preponderance of the Evidence" means evidence of a greater weight or more convincing that the evidence in opposition to it; that is, evidence which shows that the fact sought to be proved is more probable than not.
M. "Severe forms of trafficking in persons" means
N. "Sexual harassment" means
O. "Sex trafficking" means the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.
P. "Standardized screening tool" means an assessment instrument that is developed based on statistical analysis of identifying factors that statistically predict child maltreatment. The assessment tool is utilized to screen reports made to the central intake center for purposes of screening in CPS reports for an investigation or a family assessment response.
Q. "Substantial risk of harm" means that the risk of harm to a child is so great that the harm is almost certain to materialize without immediate intervention.
R. "Voyeurism" by a staff member, contractor, or volunteer means an invasion of privacy of a resident by staff for reasons unrelated to official duties and not in accordance with program policy and procedure, such as peering at a resident who is using a toilet in his or her room to perform bodily functions; requiring a resident to expose his or her buttocks, genitals, or breasts; or taking images of all or part of a resident's naked body or of a resident performing bodily functions.
S. "Victim of a severe form of trafficking" means a person subject to an act or practice described in § 1.5(O) of this Part.