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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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State
Rep. James E. Casorio, Jr. |
  
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Casorio votes to improve state's review of child deaths
HARRISBURG, Oct. 7 – State Rep. James E. Casorio Jr., D-Westmoreland, voted for legislation in the House this week that would expand Pennsylvania's system for reviewing child deaths with a view toward improving safety and child death prevention programs in the state.
"Too many children and young people die in Pennsylvania each year under preventable circumstances, and while there is an informal program in place in the state to investigate many of these deaths, Pennsylvania is one of just four states in the nation that do not have a formal program to investigate the cause and circumstance of every child death," Casorio said. "This legislation would improve Pennsylvania's current system and give it the force of law."
The legislation (S.B. 684) would create a Child Death Review program to be administered by the state Department of Health. The program would coordinate local teams to examine the circumstances surrounding the death of anyone under 21 in Pennsylvania. The Health Department would be responsible for setting up the program and developing protocols to cover child death reviews, providing training for child death review teams and coordinating data sharing between state and local agencies.
"The program would use this data from the reviews to develop information on child safety and child death prevention strategies, which would be provided to local governments, the health-care industry, schools, child-care agencies and parents," Casorio said. "The system would also help in the criminal investigation and prosecution of child death cases when necessary, and help to protect siblings and other people in homes where children have died."
Casorio said Pennsylvania's informal child death review program, which has been in place since 1994, has already led to several important child safety initiatives, including the state's Farm Safety Program; Cribs for Kids, which is focused on providing safe baby cribs to low-income parents; and county suicide prevention programs across the state.
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