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Dear Licensed Child Care Program Administrators,
The Division of Early Learning Licensing and Administration (DELLA) and the Division of Child Welfare have partnered to develop new child protection reporting protocols regarding lost children. The new protocols have been created to clearly distinguish between an unsupervised child and a lost child, and when a report must be made to Child Protective Services.
Additionally, the protocols are being implemented to maintain the highest safety standards for children in child care while simultaneously reducing the number of incidents reported to Child Protective Services that do not meet the threshold for child neglect.
Any incidents of a lost or an unsupervised child will continue to be reported to DELLA.
Unsupervised Children:
Unsupervised children are incidents that occur within a licensed area (inside the fenced playground, classroom, bathroom, hallway, or other licensed area), the child was not harmed, and the facility followed its protocols in order to identify the missing child. For example, the facility conducted a name-to-face attendance verification during a transition and immediately identified that the child was not present. The child was only lost for a brief amount of time, the program’s protocol was immediately followed, and the child was retrieved.
Unsupervised child incidents that meet the criteria above must be reported to licensing; the licensing specialist will conduct a site visit to determine whether the program followed its protocols. If a program follows all protocols and the child is found unharmed within a reasonable timeframe, the program will not be cited for lack of supervision.
Child care programs are required to track the number of incidents where a child was unsupervised over the past 3 years. If there is a pattern of 3 or more incidents of unsupervised child occurrences within the last 3 years, the program must report the 4th incident to Child Protective Services within 24 hours and inform Child Protective Services that the program has had 3 previous unsupervised child occurrences in the last 3 years.
Lost Child/Report to Child Protective Services:
A program must report a lost child to Child Protective Services any time authorities have been contacted to locate a missing child, if a child is harmed while lost, or if the child is under the age of 18 months. A child is also considered a lost child, and the program must report the incident to child protective services, when the child has been separated from the group outside of the supervision of the assigned staff member for longer periods of time, including children 18 months to preschool age missing for more than 5 minutes, or a school-age child (5 years and older) missing for more than 10 minutes.
The following are examples of a lost child that the facility must report to Child Protective Services and DELLA:
- The child leaves the licensed area (indoor or outdoor).
- A child is harmed/hurt.
- The program contacted local authorities.
- There is a pattern of 3 or more unsupervised child incidents in the past three years.
- Programs on probation for a lost child incident must report any additional unsupervised child incidents to Child Protective Services.
- Any unsupervised child younger than 18 months of age.
This policy should not prevent a program from reporting to Child Protective Services if it believes the lost or unsupervised child warrants such a report. Please reach out to your licensing specialist if you have any additional questions.
The new protocols will be effective on March 12, 2026.
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