Summarizes states’ laws and policies for investigating reports of child maltreatment, including required activities, staff, and level of evidence to confirm that child maltreatment occurred.

Summarizes states’ screening policies, including use of centralized screening, information required to screen reports, decision processes for screening, and required screening activities.

Summarizes states’ reporting laws and policies, including use of centralized reporting, reporting standards, mandated reporting, and false reporting.

The technical appendix provides a table identifying which states support the findings from the four fact sheets.

Summarizes states’ definitions for types of maltreatment, risk of harm, type of harm, exceptions, perpetrators, and child age.

Information and data about child welfare outcomes is available from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau.

Additional information about state laws and policies related to child abuse and neglect are available from the Child Welfare Information Gateway. (Note: Information available from this resource may be different from information in the SCAN Policies Database due to the scope and timeframe of data collection. The SCAN Policies Database is based on the collection and review of publicly available statutes and documentation, plus documentation provided by state child welfare agencies.)

The SCAN Policies Database data files and supporting data use documentation are also available through the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN). Additional data file formats of the SCAN Policies Database are available from NDACAN.

The codebook provides information about each variable in the 2019 data set, including variable names, labels, definitions, protocol number, variable type, and frequencies. The codebook has four appendices.