Background
Oregon’s State Child Death Review and Prevention Team (state team) is an interdisciplinary team. The state team exists within a larger child death response system comprised of professionals working to understand and prevent unexpected child death in Oregon and across the nation. The state team is charged with supporting county child death review teams (county teams) and collecting and analyzing child death information to support local and statewide prevention efforts.
Mission
The mission of the state team is to serve Oregon by reducing preventable child deaths.
Charter
State Child Death Review and Prevention Team Charter (PDF)
Purpose
The purpose of the state team is to better understand the circumstances surrounding child deaths occurring in Oregon to prevent future child deaths and serious injuries. The team accomplishes this through:
- Reviewing data gathered from collaborative, multidisciplinary, comprehensive case reviews.
- Supporting county teams where the reviews primarily occur.
- Tracking data-driven trends, improvement opportunities, and recommendations.
- Advocating for equitable prevention strategies at the community, local, state, and national levels.
- Informing continuous quality improvement within Oregon’s larger child death review system.
Objectives
- Support accurate identification and uniform reporting of the cause and manner of child deaths.
- Promote cooperation, collaboration, and communication across the child and family serving system and enhance coordination of efforts.
- Achieve quality, equitable investigation of child deaths consistent with national standards.
- Design and implement cooperative, standardized protocols for the review of child deaths.
- Ensure accurate, complete, and timely data entry in the National Fatality Review - Case Reporting System.
- Review county team prevention recommendations and support prevention efforts.
- Identify needed changes in legislation, policy, and practices, and recommend expanded efforts in child health and safety to prevent child deaths and serious injuries.
Membership
The state team is committed to diversity among team members and utilizes a voluntary diversity questionnaire as an assessment tool to inform recruitment efforts. The state team will continue to utilize this tool annually or as needed to fulfill the goal of ongoing reflection and growth toward creating a diverse team that represents perspectives and lived experiences of the Oregonians served by the broader child and family system.
The state team recognizes the sovereignty of Oregon Tribal Nations and continues to seek out opportunities to engage tribes in child death review and prevention efforts in a manner determined by the Oregon Tribal Nations.
The state team will at a minimum seek to include members representing the following perspectives and roles:
- Oregon Health Authority, Public Health Division, Injury and Violence Prevention Program, co-chair
- Oregon Department of Human Services, Child Welfare, Child Fatality Prevention and Review Program, co-chair