Rhode Island Code of Regulations › Title 214 - DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES › Chapter 20 - Child Protective Services › Subchapter 00 - N/A › Part 1 - Child Protective Services › Section 214-RICR-20-00-1.5 - Definitions

Current through June 14, 2024
A. "Caregiver"
				 means a parent or legal guardian or other person responsible for the child's
				 welfare, as defined in §
										1.5(K)     of
				 this Part.
B. "Child abuse and
				 neglect (CA/N)" means a child whose physical or mental health or welfare is
				 harmed, or threatened with harm, when his or her parent or other person
				 responsible for his or her welfare:
1.
				 Inflicts, or allows to be inflicted, upon the child physical or mental injury,
				 including excessive corporal punishment; or
2. Creates, or allows to be created, a
				 substantial risk of physical or mental injury to the child, including excessive
				 corporal punishment; or
3. Commits,
				 or allows to be committed, against the child, an act of sexual abuse;
				 or
4. Fails to supply the child
				 with adequate food, clothing, shelter, or medical care, though financially able
				 to do so or offered financial or other reasonable means to do so; or
5. Fails to provide the child with a minimum
				 degree of care or proper supervision or guardianship because of his or her
				 unwillingness or inability to do so by situations or conditions such as, but
				 not limited to: social problems, mental incompetency, or the use of a drug,
				 drugs, or alcohol to the extent that the parent or other person responsible for
				 the child's welfare loses his or her ability or is unwilling to properly care
				 for the child; or
6. Abandons or
				 deserts the child; or
7. Sexually
				 exploits the child in that the person allows, permits, or encourages the child
				 to engage in prostitution as defined by the provisions in R.I. Gen. Laws §
											11-34.1-1 et seq., entitled
				 "Commercial Sexual Activity"; or
8.
				 Sexually exploits the child in that the person allows, permits, encourages, or
				 engages in the obscene or pornographic photographing, filming, or depiction of
				 the child in a setting that taken as a whole, suggests to the average person
				 that the child is about to engage in, or has engaged in, any sexual act, or
				 that depicts any such child under 18 years of age performing sodomy, oral
				 copulation, sexual intercourse, masturbation, or bestiality; or
9. Commits, or allows to be committed, any
				 sexual offense against the child as such sexual offenses are defined by the
				 provisions of R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 11-37, entitled "Sexual Assault", as
				 amended; or
10. Commits, or allows
				 to be committed, against any child an act involving sexual penetration or
				 sexual contact if the child is under fifteen (15) years of age; or if the child
				 is fifteen (15) years or older, and (1) force or coercion is used by the
				 perpetrator, or (2) the perpetrator knows, or has reason to know, that the
				 victim is a severely impaired person as defined by the provisions of R.I. Gen.
				 Laws §
											11-5-11, or physically helpless as
				 defined by the provisions of R.I. Gen. Laws Chapter 11-37.