Removes research restrictions from certain unfounded reports of alleged abuse or maltreatment

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Jabari Brisport says this is needed

Under current statute, New York draws a distinction between founded and unfounded cases in allowing individuals to request case information for bona fide research purposes. Based on a review of other state statutes limiting the release of child welfare records for research purposes, New York is unique in distinguishing between founded and unfounded cases. See, e.g., MCLA Sec. 711.627 (Michigan), CA Self & Inst. Code Sec. 10850 (California), OAC Sec. 5180:2-3321 (Ohio), NJSA Sec. 9:6-8.10a (New Jersey), YAMS Sec. 210.150 (Misiouri). Therefore, this bill seeks to put us into line with more common practice, allowing researchers to analyze departmental case data more comprehensively, while maintaining the privacy of subjects in unfounded or unsubstantiated cases and FAR cases. Current law lists five scenarios under which unfounded or unsubstanti- ated case data may be accessed, but research is not one of them. The bill establishes "bona fide research purposes" as the sixth scenario. For privacy reasons, the bill guarantees that personal identifying information will be redacted unless it is absolutely essential to the research purpose and the department gives prior approval. Current law lists seven scenarios under which FAR case data may be accessed, but research is not one of them. The bill, as with unsubstan- tiated or unfounded cases, establishes "bona fide research purposes" as an additional qualifying scenario and creates privacy restrictions. Within just the last two years, governmental and non-governmental organ- izations have repeatedly encountered issues when requesting this data, significantly impacting their ability to generate research which accu- rately reflected the original goals of the projects. For example, (i) the NYC Center for Innovation Through Design sought this information to model potential policy shifts that could protect against ACS contact, but were unable to access information which may have contained negative, needless ACS interactions; (ii) The NYC Family Policy Project's partici- patory action research study with CUNY (approved by both the city and state) needed to use a workaround which changed the study design because they could not access relevant case data; and (iii) The YouthNPower guaranteed income research team had wanted to be able to report on all ACS contact that study participants and the control group had during the study year, but were not able to get a count that included all unfounded cases and CARES cases. This bill will remove a restriction, protect the privacy of case subjects, and better allow governmental and non-governmental organiza- tions to conduct research and develop policy proposals which will keep children and families safe.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.