Agency directors, compliance officers, legislative staff and journalists keep asking the same questions, and the answers today are scattered across statutes, long audit PDFs and press releases. These six guides collect them in one place, each cited to the primary source.
Resources for the people who keep children safe
Plain-English guides to the federal missing-from-care rule, the government audits of it, and the identity gap in caregiver screening. Written to be cited: figures are documented in Supporting material.
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Every figure traced to its source
Written for the people who carry the duty
Six guides
What 42 U.S.C. §671(a)(35)(B) requires of every state child-welfare agency when a child in foster care goes missing: the two reports, what “immediately” means, who is covered, when it took effect, and how the 2023 amendments changed it.
The two HHS Office of Inspector General audits of 2018–2020 reporting, decomposed correctly: how many episodes were reviewed, how many were never reported to NCMEC, how many late, how many were never reported to law enforcement for NCIC entry — and the mistakes people make when quoting them.
The federal rule sets a floor; each state adds its own statute, rule and agency practice. A state-by-state reference, built out in stages and dated, noting investigations that have named a state.
The vocabulary of a new category — identity enrollment, proof of presence, geo-verified check-ins, the longitudinal record — and the standard a system has to meet before anyone can rely on it.
The National Child Protection Act is more than thirty years old. A background check on the day of hire says nothing about the years that follow, and a name-based check can miss a person’s record entirely if the identity presented was not real. The case for recurring screening, with the costs.
Short definitions of NCIC, NCMEC, AFCARS, Title IV-E, NCPA, missing-from-care and the other terms that recur across this field, with links to the guides that go deeper. The words have precise legal meanings, and using the wrong one changes what you are claiming.
Three kinds of organization carry this duty, and each of them meets it in a different place.
- State child-welfare agencies — the Title IV-E agency that carries the statutory duty.
- Foster care and child-placing agencies — the providers who supervise placements and complete monthly visits.
- Senior and disability care providers — anyone whose staff work with vulnerable adults.
Written to be cited
Figures documented in Supporting material
Each guide is cited to the primary source, reviewed before publication and dated; corrections are welcome.
Each guide is cited to the primary source and is reviewed by FComply before publication; corrections are welcome at info@fcomply.com. Every figure on these pages is traced to the document it comes from, with the supporting sentence quoted, in Supporting material. Every page on the site is listed on the site map; key terms are defined in the glossary.
Two reports, one clock
The 2023 amendments
Protect the vulnerable and build trust at scale.
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