‘Critical gaps.’ NC lawmakers want reforms after east Charlotte girl’s death
North Carolina lawmakers are pitching a new statewide team to review some of the state’s most serious child welfare cases after the death of a Mecklenburg County girl.
Charlotte state House Rep. Carla Cunnigham — alongside Reps. Allen Chesser, Mike Colvin and Donny Lambeth — introduced the Dominique Moody Safety Act on Thursday, which would create a Child Welfare Case Escalation Team within the state’s social services department.
The legislation is named for the Charlotte 6-year-old found dead in her aunt’s home last year covered in scars and malnourished. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police and Mecklenburg County’s social services department received numerous reports about the home before Moody died. The county social services department has not released public records related to Moody’s case requested by The Charlotte Observer and other media outlets.
The aunt and two other women face first-degree murder charges in the case. High-profile attorneys are also probing the death, and the state House Oversight and Reform Committee previously requested records in the case.
Chesser, a Republican who represents Nash County, told the Observer Moody’s case and other child fatalities “revealed a reoccurring critical gap” the new bill aims to address.
“Repeated reports of abuse or neglect were often screened out, allowing chronic patterns to go unaddressed,” he said in a statement.
The case escalation team would be charged with providing independent reviews of high-risk cases, Chesser said, especially situations where the child has special medical needs or cases of “chronic neglect.” The state team will “collaborate and coordinate” with county social services departments and local law enforcement, and the bill calls for county departments to notify the state team when cases come up that meet the threshold for escalation.
The legislation had not yet been assigned to a committee as of Monday morning.
