Respect for Child Survivors Act

Respect for Child Survivors Act

This act requires the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to use a multidisciplinary team with investigations of child abuse and related crimes. The act also reauthorizes grants for children's advocacy centers (CACs). CACs use a multidisciplinary response to coordinate the investigation, treatment, and prosecution of child abuse cases.

(Sec. 2) This section requires the FBI to use a multidisciplinary team with any investigation of child sexual exploitation or abuse, the production of child sexual abuse material, or child trafficking. The FBI must also use a trained child adolescent forensic interviewer in these investigations. These requirements do not apply if a multidisciplinary team or an interviewer is unavailable or is otherwise inconsistent with applicable federal law.

In implementing these requirements, the FBI must use and coordinate with multidisciplinary teams based at CACs.

(Sec. 3) This section modifies and reauthorizes through FY2028 grants for regional and local CACs, as well as for technical assistance and training. Grants for CACs are administered by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) within the Department of Justice.

It adds a finding stating that a key to a child victim healing from abuse is access to supportive and healthy families and communities.

The section modifies grant provisions for regional CACs, including by

• directing the OJJDP to maintain (in addition to establish) regional CACs;
• adding, as a new program objective, the provision of technical assistance, training, coordination, and organizational capacity support for state chapters; and
• requiring the OJJDP to consider, as an additional selection criteria, proposals for regional CACs that best result in supporting state chapters.

The section also modifies grant provisions for local CACs, including by adding as new grant purposes (1) the establishment and maintenance of a network of care for child abuse victims, and (2) the development and dissemination of practice standards for care and best practices in program evaluation.

Finally, the section modifies the criteria that the OJJDP may use to evaluate local CAC programs.