REFUGE HOUSE, INC.

PURPOSE:

To establish the governing principles by which Refuge House identifies, reports, and documents serious incidents involving children in care, ensuring the safety and well-being of each child and full compliance with the Minimum Standards and contract reporting requirements.

POLICY:

Refuge House handles all serious incidents in accordance with 26 TAC §§749.501–749.513, the 24-Hour Residential Child Care Contract, Texas Family Code §264.018, every applicable SSCC Provider Manual, the T3C System Blueprint, and COA standards. Where timeframes differ across sources, Refuge House applies the strictest. All Refuge House personnel and foster parents are mandated reporters and must report knowledge or suspicion of abuse, neglect, or exploitation directly to the Texas Abuse and Neglect Hotline (1-800-252-5400 or txabusehotline.org) in addition to internal reporting.

DEFINITION OF A SERIOUS INCIDENT (TAC §749.501):

A serious incident is any non-routine occurrence that has, or may have, dangerous or significant consequences for the care, supervision, or treatment of a child. This includes, but is not limited to: a child's death; suicide attempts; substantial physical injury or critical illness requiring medical treatment or hospitalization; runaways/unauthorized absences; a child's commission of a crime (or arrest/indictment); allegations of abuse, neglect, exploitation, or abusive treatment; child-on-child physical or sexual abuse; allegations of prohibited emergency behavior intervention or prohibited restraint; communicable disease; and incidents rendering a home unsafe.

MANDATED REPORTING:

Every Refuge House employee and foster parent must report any suspicion of abuse, neglect, or exploitation directly to the Texas Abuse and Neglect Hotline immediately, in addition to internal reporting (TAC §749.509(b)). Each signs the Responsibilities for Reporting Abuse and Neglect acknowledgment on or before the date of hire (personnel) and prior to verification (foster parents).

REPORTING OBLIGATIONS AND TIMEFRAMES:

Serious incidents are reported to HHSC Child Care Regulation (CCR), the SSCC/DFPS, the child's parent/managing conservator, and law enforcement at the strictest applicable timeframe (TAC §749.503). Governing benchmarks:

• Child's death: law enforcement immediately (no later than 1 hour); CCR and parents as soon as possible (no later than 2 hours).
• Suspected abuse/neglect/exploitation: Texas Abuse Hotline immediately; CCR as soon as the agency becomes aware; parents immediately after ensuring the child's safety.
• Substantial injury/critical illness, child arrest/indictment, communicable disease, suicide attempt, home rendered unsafe, adult-related allegations: CCR as soon as possible, no later than 24 hours.
• Unauthorized absence (age-tiered): law enforcement immediately for a child under 6; within 2 hours for ages 6–12; within 6 hours for ages 13+ (immediately if trafficking, abduction, or no intent to return).
• SSCC/DFPS: the written Serious Incident Report via the Texas Provider Gateway within 24 hours of discovery (24-Hour RCC Contract §1411).

The complete incident-by-incident timeframe matrix and the operational reporting workflow are maintained in FC-SIR-01.1 Serious Incident Reporting Procedure.

DFPS CONTRACT NOTIFICATIONS (NON-INCIDENT ADMINISTRATIVE NOTICES):

Home for this block: this policy already carries Refuge House's DFPS/RCM notification machinery (the §1411 Serious Incident channel, timeframe matrix, and the FC-SIR-01.1 workflow), so the RCC's small administrative notification duties are consolidated here rather than scattered. Added 7/13/26 (FY26 RCC gap remediation, audit Package 9).

Implementation guidance. The Executive Director owns the §1400 email account and the §1412/§1410 RCM notices; the on-call system owns the §1530 immediate notice (any staff member or caregiver receiving an unaccompanied child calls the CPS Caseworker and the Hotline immediately, then documents per FC-SIR-01.1). Each notice is filed with its send date in the agency contract file; dated Pulse tasks for the §1412 change triggers (administrator/board-president change, ownership, profit status, admissions-policy amendment, service-scope change) are planned.

WRITTEN REPORT CONTENT AND RETENTION:

Each Serious Incident Report must contain the content required by TAC §749.511 (home identification; date/time; child identifying information; adults and witnesses involved; nature and circumstances of the incident; interventions; treating professional's findings; and resolution), with the additional documentation required by TAC §749.513 (e.g., any EBI within 48 hours prior to a death, substantial injury, or suicide attempt; runaway location efforts and notifications). Reports are de-identified (only first name and last initial for other children) and retained per the Record Management Policy.

NO RETALIATION:

Refuge House prohibits any discharge or retaliation against any employee, child, foster parent, contractor, volunteer, or other person who, in good faith, reports a serious incident, abuse/neglect, or the misuse of emergency behavior intervention.

QUALITY ASSURANCE:

Incident reports are reviewed monthly for patterns and trends, with a quarterly report to the Quality Development (PQI) committee; action plans are developed and presented to the Executive Director, and unauthorized-absence patterns trigger an ISP review per the procedure.

REFERENCES:

• TAC §749.501 (definition of a serious incident), §749.503 (reporting timeframes), §749.509 (mandated reporting), §749.511 (required report content), §749.513 (additional documentation)
• Texas Family Code §264.018 (notification of significant events); 25 TAC Chapter 97, Subchapter A (communicable diseases)
• 24-Hour Residential Child Care Contract §1411 (reporting serious incidents to DFPS); §1400 (email account, 5-day change notice), §1410 (24-hour non-serious-event notice; 10-day payment-issue notice), §1412 (10-day significant-change notice), §1530 (unaccompanied child) — DFPS 24-Hour RCC Requirements (FY26); Texas Provider Gateway (TPG)
• SSCC Provider Manuals (OCOK, Belong/SJRC, Saint Francis, 2INgage, EMPOWER, 4Kids4Families); T3C System Blueprint; COA Standards

SSCC alignment (FY-26): Reviewed against the 2INgage Provider Manual Rev. 1.2026; aligned — no additional provider-specific provisions required. Cross-reference: FC-CQI-01 Continuous Quality Improvement Policy; FY-26 SSCC coverage tracker (temporary-reference/fy26-sscc-joint-monitoring/sscc-alignment/).

SSCC alignment (FY-26) — EMPOWER: EMPOWER Provider Manual Rev. 1.2026 — reviewed; aligned, no additional provider-specific provisions required. Cross-reference: FC-CQI-01 Continuous Quality Improvement Policy; FY-26 SSCC variance matrix.

SSCC alignment (FY-26) — OCOK: OCOK Network Management Operations Manual Rev. 7-1-2025 — reviewed; aligned, no additional provider-specific provisions required in this document. Cross-reference: FC-CQI-01 Continuous Quality Improvement Policy; FY-26 SSCC variance matrix.

SSCC alignment (FY-26) — 4Kids: 4Kids4Families Joint Operations Manual (Dec 2025) / Subcontractor Agreement — reviewed; aligned (4Kids items here are casework/Minimum-Standards-level), no additional provider-specific provisions required in this document. Cross-reference: FC-CQI-01 Continuous Quality Improvement Policy; FY-26 SSCC variance matrix.

SSCC alignment (FY-26) — Belong: Belong Stage I & II Provider Manual (Aug 2025) / Provider Services Agreement — reviewed; aligned, no additional provider-specific provisions required in this document. Cross-reference: FC-CQI-01 Continuous Quality Improvement Policy; FY-26 SSCC variance matrix.

SSCC alignment (FY-26) — SFCS: SFCS Placement Provider Manual (July 2020, publicly-sourced — currency unconfirmed) / 2019 Affiliate Provider Agreement — reviewed; aligned, no additional provider-specific provisions required in this document. Cross-reference: FC-CQI-01 Continuous Quality Improvement Policy; FY-26 SSCC variance matrix.

RELATED PROCEDURES:

• FC-SIR-01.1 Serious Incident Reporting Procedure
• FC-04 Crisis Management Policy (crisis incidents and escalation)
• FC-16.06 Emergency Behavior Intervention Policy (prohibited-EBI allegations)
• FC-16.07 Discipline Policy (prohibited-discipline allegations)
• FC7-01 Family Connections and Engagement Policy; FC-WCM-01 Worker Contact and Monitoring; Record Management Policy

DEFINITIONS:

Serious (Reportable) Incident: an incident meeting the §749.501 definition that must be reported externally per §749.503.

Non-Reportable Incident: a non-routine occurrence documented internally that does not rise to the serious-incident threshold.

Mandated Reporter: any person required by law to report suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation — including all Refuge House personnel and foster parents.

This policy document establishes the governing principles for Serious Incident Reporting. The corresponding procedure document (FC-SIR-01.1) operationalizes these principles. While policies require Board approval and remain relatively stable, procedures may be updated by the Executive Director to adapt to regulatory changes or operational improvements without requiring Board approval, provided such changes maintain alignment with the policy's intent.