(a) The Department shall establish a “”Child Protective Services””. It shall have a sufficient staff to fulfill the purposes of this Chapter and organized in such a way as to minimize the continuity of responsibility, care and services of individual workers toward individual children and families. Child Protective Services and the Guam Police Department shall be the sole agencies responsible for receiving and investigating all reports of child abuse or neglect made pursuant to this Chapter, specifically including but not limited to reports of child abuse or neglect in facilities operated by the Department and other public agencies, for the purpose of providing protective services to prevent further abuses to children and to provide or arrange for and monitor the provision of those services necessary to safeguard and ensure the child’s well-being and development and to preserve and stabilize family life wherever appropriate.

(b) Upon receiving a report that a child has been harmed or is subject to threatened harm, Child Protective Services shall cause such investigation to be made in accordance with this Chapter as it deems to be appropriate. In conducting the investigation Child Protective Services may require the cooperation of police officers or other appropriate law enforcement authorities for phases of the investigation for which they are better equipped and Child Protective Services may conduct a criminal history record check concerning an alleged perpetrator of harm or threatened harm to a child.

(c) Upon satisfying itself as to the course of action to be pursued, Child Protective Services shall:

(1) Resolve the matter in such informal fashion as is appropriate under the circumstances;

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(2) Seek to enter into a service plan, without filing a petition in court, with such members of the child’s family and such other authorized agencies as Child Protective Services deems to be necessary to the success of the service plan, including but not limited to the member or members of the child’s family who have legal custody of the child;

(3) Assume protective custody of the child pursuant to § 13302;

(4) File a petition; or

(5) Relinquish its protective custody and return the child to his or her legal custodian.

(d) Child Protective Services shall make available among its services for the prevention and treatment of child abuse or neglect multidisciplinary teams, instruction in education for parenthood, protective and preventive social counseling, emergency caretaker services and emergency shelter care, emergency medical services and the establishment of group organized by former abusing or neglecting persons and encourage self-reporting and self- treatment of present abusers.

§ 13301.1. Reasonable Efforts to Preserve and Reunify
Families.

Except as provided in §13301.2 of this Chapter, Child Protective Services shall make reasonable efforts to preserve and reunify families prior to the placement of a child in foster care, to prevent or eliminate the need for removing the child from the home of the child, and to make it possible for a child to return safely to the home of the child. In determining the reasonable efforts to be made with respect to a child, and in making these reasonable efforts, the health and safety of the child shall be the paramount concern. Reasonable efforts to finalize an alternate permanency plan may be made concurrently with reasonable efforts to reunify the child and family.

Concurrent planning shall mean the simultaneous preparation of plans to (1) assist members of the child’s family in completing a Service Plan pursuant to 19 Guam Code Ann. § 13304 that, when completed successfully will allow the child to return home safely;

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and (2) to place the child in a setting that will become the child’s permanent home if such members of the child’s family are unable to successfully complete the Service Plan.

SOURCE: Added by P.L. 36-135:2 (Dec. 28, 2022), effective 90 days after enactment pursuant to by P.L. 36-135:7.

§ 13301.2. Circumstances Negating Requirement for
Reasonable Efforts.

(a) Reasonable efforts to reunify a parent or guardian with the child shall not be required or shall cease if one (1) or more of the following circumstances exist:

(1) the parent or guardian, upon a finding of clear and convincing evidence, has subjected the child to aggravated circumstances, such as abandonment, torture, sexual abuse, chronic or severe abuse, or chronic or severe neglect. For the purposes of this Chapter, aggravated circumstances shall include the failure to protect such a child from such conduct, when failure to protect evinces a wanton or depraved indifference to human life or has resulted in the death of such a child or in serious bodily injury to such a child;

(2) the parent or guardian has been convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter of another child of the parent; aiding, abetting, attempting, conspiring, or soliciting to commit such crimes; or a felony assault that resulted in serious bodily injury to the child or to another child of the parent;

(3) the parental rights of the parent with respect to a sibling of the child have been involuntarily terminated, unless the court determines that providing reasonable efforts would be in the best interests of the child, would not be contrary to the health and safety of the child, and would likely result in the reunification of the parent and the child in the foreseeable future; or

(4) the child has subsequently been found to be abused or neglected within one (1) year after returning home following placement in foster care.

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(b) Once a child is in the custody of Child Protective Services, Child Protective Services may petition the court for a judicial determination that efforts to reunify the parent and child are not required under the circumstances specified in Subsection (a) of this Section.

(c) If the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that any of the circumstances specified in Subsection (a) of this Section exists, the court shall waive the requirement that reasonable efforts be made to reunify the child with the child’s parent or guardian.

(1) A court determination addressing reasonable efforts to prevent removal must be made within sixty (60) days of removal of the child from his or her home.

(2) If the court finds that reasonable efforts are not required, it shall document that determination by written findings of fact.

(d) A Permanency Plan Hearing, as provided in § 13324 of this Article, shall be held for the child within thirty (30) days after the determination.

SOURCE: Added by P.L. 36-135:2 (Dec. 28, 2022), effective 90 days after enactment pursuant to by P.L. 36-135:7.