Office of Inspector General of DHHS Report on Missing Foster Children

The audit report is  here. It was published in March 2023.

Forty-five of the 100 missing children sampled were not reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Twenty-two children were not reported to NCMEC in a timely fashion meaning more than 24 hours after they went missing.

“FEDERAL STATUTE

APPENDIX B: FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDANCE

Title IV-E of the Act, as amended by the Strengthening Families Act (see footnote 8) (the Act § 471(a)(35); 42 U.S.C. § 671(a)(35)), requires States to develop and implement specific protocols for locating and ensuring the safety of youth who are missing from care, including the following:

(62)(A) not later than 1 year after September 29, 2014, the State shall develop and implement specific protocols for—

1. (i)  expeditiously locating any child missing from foster care;
2. (ii)  determining the primary factors that contributed to the child’s running away or otherwise being absent from care, and to the extent possible and appropriate, responding to those factors in current and subsequent placements;
3. (iii)  determining the child’s experiences while absent from care, including screening the child to determine if the child is a possible sex trafficking victim (as defined in section 475(9)(A)); and
4. (iv)  reporting such related information as required by the Secretary [of Health and Human Services]; and

(B) not later than 2 years after such date of enactment [of the Strengthening Families Act], for each child and youth described in paragraph (9)(C)(i)(I) of this subsection, the State agency shall report immediately, and in no case later than 24 hours after receiving, information on missing or abducted children or youth to the law enforcement authorities for entry into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, established pursuant to section 534 of title 28, United States Code, and to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.”

“ACF PI ACYF-CB-PI-15-07 provides that within 2 years of enactment of the Strengthening Families Act (i.e., by September 29, 2016), Title IV-E agencies (which for this report may be understood to mean State agencies) will develop and implement protocols to report missing or abducted children immediately (no later than 24 hours after receiving information) to law enforcement for entry into the NCIC database and to NCMEC. This PI also cites to section 471(a)(35)(B) of the Act.”

Administration For Children & Families (ACF) concurred with the OIG recommendation 1:

“Recommendation 1:
We recommend that the Administration for Children and Families work with State agencies to ensure compliance with Federal requirements to report missing children episodes to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in a timely manner.”

ACF released a Joint Communication with Office on Trafficking in Persons. You can see it

here. ACF hosted a Webinar on January 27 ,2023. You can see it here.

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