Staff members of the Northern Kentucky Service Region of the Cabinet for Families and Children are working to make sure every community can provide parents of newborns the option of safe and legal child abandonment.

Over the coming weeks, child protection staff will contact fire and police stations throughout the region’s eight counties to offer them the information and materials that emergency personnel will need to fulfill their responsibilities under Kentucky’s Safe Infants Act. Additionally, CFC staff, under the direction of Joel Griffith, Service Region Administrator, will be distributing this information to schools, health departments, and other public agencies in an effort to raise public awareness. Mr. Griffith said, "This law is intended to avoid tragic outcomes for the children of women who may have concealed their pregnancy. However, it will only be effective if women are aware of this option and agencies are prepared to respond."

CFC staff will distribute packets of materials to police and fire personnel who do not already have them. Each packet contains forms, brochures and an ankle bracelet that is to be placed on an abandoned child.

Cabinet workers can help fire and police departments plan training sessions on the law utilizing audiovisual materials prepared by the state’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) for Children Project.

The Thomas J. Burch Safe Infants Act, enacted April 2002, made it legal for parents and others to leave a baby, up to 72 hours after birth, at any hospital, with EMS personnel or with any firefighter or police officer. Hospitals and the state’s EMS centers have already received the materials and training they need to comply with the law, so the Cabinet is concentrating its outreach efforts on police and fire stations.

Individuals who abandon a child under the law’s terms will not be identified or prosecuted unless the abandoned infant shows signs of abuse or neglect.

A parent relinquishing a child may anonymously provide information about the infant, including medical history, at any time. A form for that purpose will be offered to the parent at the time he or she relinquishes a baby.

Police, fire or EMS personnel who take custody of a child abandoned under the law must transport the infant to a hospital for a medical evaluation. Once legally abandoned children are pronounced healthy, they are placed temporarily in foster homes.

Parents who abandon infants under the law can reclaim their children if they act within 30 days. If they do not do so, the Cabinet for Families and Children can ask a court to terminate their parental rights, which will free the children for adoption.

The Safe Infants Act is intended to provide a safe alternative to parents who might otherwise expose their newborn children to harm. More than half the states have enacted similar laws.

At least six infants have been abandoned under the Kentucky law. No infant in the state has died as a result of the abandonment law, which took effect last year.