CPT Referral Criteria for Professionals

In order for the Child Protection Team (CPT) to become involved in a case there must be an open investigation with the Department of Children and Families and the child must be listed as a victim on the abuse report for CPT to provide services in familial child abuse cases. In cases on non-familial child abuse CPT can provide services at the request of law enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office. 

Listed below is the statutory language that describes the types of situations that are required to be referred to CPT for services. As a result of this statute the vast majority of CPT’s referrals come from the Department of Children and Families and law enforcement. We do get some referrals from other agencies who may be involved with a family that there is an active investigation. The only service that CPT can provide in this referral scenario is a multidisciplinary staffing to bring all parties together to discuss the case and formulate an appropriate treatment plan for the family.

Subsection 39.303 (2), Florida Statutes, specifies the types of cases that must be referred by Department of Children and Families Child Protective Investigators (CPI) to the Child Protection Team for assessment and other appropriate support services. Mandatory referral cases include those involving:

• Injuries to the head, bruises to the neck or head, burns, or fractures in a child of any age
• Bruises anywhere on a child five years of age or younger
• Any report alleging sexual abuse of a child
• Any sexually transmitted disease in a prepubescent child
• Reported malnutrition or failure to thrive
• Reported medical neglect of a child
• Symptoms of serious emotional problems in a child when emotional or other abuse, abandonment, or neglect is suspected
• A sibling or other child remaining in the home where one or more children have been pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital or other health care facility, or have been injured and later died as a result of suspected abuse, abandonment or neglect