HB 1577 — An Act amending the act of June 13, 1967 (P.L.31, No.21), known as the Human Services Code, in children and youth, providing for ensuring safe and humane institutional practices.

PRINTER'S NO.   1864

                     THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA



                         HOUSE BILL
                         No. 1577
                                                Session of
                                                  2025

     INTRODUCED BY SHUSTERMAN, HOHENSTEIN, HANBIDGE, DOUGHERTY, HILL-
        EVANS, KHAN, D. WILLIAMS, SANCHEZ, WARREN, CEPEDA-FREYTIZ AND
        MAYES, JUNE 6, 2025

     REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH, JUNE 9, 2025


                                     AN ACT
 1   Amending the act of June 13, 1967 (P.L.31, No.21), entitled "An
 2      act to consolidate, editorially revise, and codify the public
 3      welfare laws of the Commonwealth," in children and youth,
 4      providing for ensuring safe and humane institutional
 5      practices.
 6      The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
 7   hereby enacts as follows:
 8      Section 1.     The act of June 13, 1967 (P.L.31, No.21), known
 9   as the Human Services Code, is amended by adding a section to
10   read:
11      Section 724.1.    Ensuring Safe and Humane Institutional
12   Practices.--(a)    The safe and humane care of children in
13   facilities demands that restrictive procedures, including
14   chemical restraints, manual restraints, mechanical restraints,
15   seclusion, exclusion, strip searches and body cavity searches,
16   only be used as measures of last resort to protect a child from
17   behavior that poses a serious and immediate risk of physical
18   harm to self or others.
19      (b)   To ensure safe and humane institutional practices:
 1         (1)    Restrictive procedures, including restrictions on a
 2   child's rights, including the right to a quality education, may
 3   not be used for punishment, retaliation, administrative
 4   convenience, staffing shortages or for any reason other than
 5   securing the immediate physical safety of a child.
 6         (2)    Inappropriate use of restrictive procedures shall be
 7   grounds for full investigation, including a criminal
 8   investigation, and license revocation.
 9         (c)    The department shall:
10         (1)    Establish standards consistent with the law and
11   regulations of various departments of the Commonwealth for all
12   facilities within this Commonwealth that include a prohibition
13   on:
14         (i)    The use of restrictive procedures unless used as
15   measures of last resort to protect a child from behavior that
16   poses a serious and immediate risk of physical harm to the child
17   or others.
18         (ii)    The restriction of a child's rights, including the
19   right to privacy, receive mail, make phone calls, have in-person
20   visitation with family members and receive a quality education.
21         (iii)    Any and all instances of abuse.
22         (2)    Be responsible for the maintenance of safe and humane
23   care at a facility. The department or its representative shall
24   have free and full access to the premises and records of a
25   facility and full opportunity to interrogate or interview any
26   officer, employe or resident of the facility. The department
27   shall make routine announced and unannounced daytime and
28   nighttime inspections of all facilities.
29         (3)    Expeditiously review all allegations of unsafe or
30   inhumane care and maintain a public record of confirmed

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 1   instances that have occurred in a facility.
 2      (4)    Whenever the department, upon inspection, investigation
 3   or complaint, finds a facility in violation of law, or that a
 4   facility has failed to establish, provide or maintain standards
 5   of care required by this section, give immediate written notice
 6   of the violation or failure to the officers charged with
 7   managing the facility. The following procedure shall apply:
 8      (i)    The notice shall include a description of the violation
 9   or failure, the corrective action needed and a specified time
10   frame for making any necessary corrections.
11      (ii)    Upon receipt of the notice, an officer charged with
12   managing the facility shall comply with the direction of the
13   department. If the officer charged with managing the facility
14   fails to comply with the department's direction within the
15   specified time frame, the department may:
16      (A)    Revoke the facility's license.
17      (B)    Request the Attorney General to institute appropriate
18   legal proceedings to enforce compliance with the direction.
19      (C)    Withhold any State money available for the facility
20   until the officer charged with managing the facility complies
21   with the direction.
22      (D)    Refer the matter for criminal investigation.
23      (d)    The following exceptions apply to this section:
24      (1)    A limited period of cool down or time out for a child is
25   not considered solitary confinement if the period conforms to
26   the following:
27      (i)    The child's behavior is creating an imminent risk of
28   physical harm to self or others and is for a maximum of three
29   hours, with release of the child as soon as the child has
30   regained self-control.

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 1      (ii)     Support staff, including a social worker, is notified
 2   and made available to the child to assist the child in calming
 3   down.
 4      (iii)     Staff closely monitors the child during the period and
 5   maintains physical proximity.
 6      (iv)     Restriction beyond three hours is documented and
 7   reported to both the department and the Office of Child
 8   Advocate.
 9      (2)    Strip searches and body cavity searches may be conducted
10   only as a last resort and where there is probable cause that the
11   child being searched possesses drugs or a weapon that could not
12   be discovered through less intrusive means and authorization
13   from an individual in the agency overseeing the facility. The
14   following shall apply to searches under this clause:
15      (i)    When authorized, strip searches shall be performed by
16   two staff or medical personnel of the same gender as the child
17   in an area that ensures the privacy and dignity of the child.
18      (ii)     Body cavity searches may only be performed by outside
19   medical providers.
20      (iii)     To the degree possible, and only when searches are
21   necessary, a facility shall rely on alternatives such as wands
22   or metal detectors.
23      (iv)     The use of a strip search or body cavity search shall
24   be documented and reported to the department. Documentation
25   shall include:
26      (A)    The probable cause that the child being searched
27   possesses drugs or a weapon that could not be discovered through
28   less intrusive means.
29      (B)    The authorization for the search.
30      (C)    The names and positions of the individuals conducting

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 1   the search.
 2      (3)    Staff may use manual restraints on a child when the
 3   child's behavior creates an imminent risk of serious physical
 4   harm to self or others and shall be conducted in accordance with
 5   the following:
 6      (i)    A facility shall ensure that manual restraints adhere to
 7   a model approved in advance by the department.
 8      (ii)    Staff shall terminate manual restraints immediately
 9   when the child's behavior no longer poses a risk of serious
10   physical harm to self or others.
11      (iii)    Staff shall observe and document the child's physical
12   and emotional condition every ten minutes while manual
13   restraints are being applied to the child.
14      (iv)    In accordance with 55 Pa. Code § 3800.211(c) (relating
15   to manual restraints), prone position manual restraints are not
16   used.
17      (e)    A facility shall have the following duties:
18      (1)    Use a program model that incorporates evidence-based and
19   evidence-informed practices. Staff shall deliver the practices
20   with the training and education required to maintain fidelity to
21   the program model or practices.
22      (2)    Ensure that staff receive regular training on cultural
23   competence, evidence-based models for recidivism reduction and
24   the provisions of 55 Pa. Code Ch. 3800 (relating to child
25   residential and day treatment facilities).
26      (3)    Maintain a discipline plan approved by the department as
27   part of the program model used under clause (1). Facilities
28   shall ensure that the discipline plan focuses on the use of
29   incentives rather than punishment or sanctions.
30      (4)    Ensure and facilitate access to a quality education.

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 1      (f)    The department shall ensure that children and their
 2   families and guardians understand how to report a grievance or
 3   any instances of unsafe or inhumane care, in written or oral
 4   form, formally or informally, or anonymously, without fear of
 5   retaliation. The following shall apply:
 6      (1)    Assistance to file a grievance shall be available upon
 7   request by a child.
 8      (2)    An adult with whom a child seeks assistance shall be
 9   permitted to provide assistance and, notwithstanding mandated
10   reporting, shall keep confidential any information shared by the
11   child for purposes of filing the grievance.
12      (3)    A facility shall accept any grievance, whether formal or
13   informal, as notice of the child's concerns and may not require
14   specific forms or processes.
15      (g)    Beginning not later than ninety days after the effective
16   date of this subsection, the department shall prepare and
17   publish a monthly public report detailing enrollment in
18   educational programming, use of seclusion, use of restraints and
19   invasive searches involving children committed by order of court
20   to a facility operated under the direction or supervision of the
21   court or other public authority. The following shall apply:
22      (1)    Each quarterly report shall include, at minimum, the
23   following disaggregated data:
24      (i)    Number of children subjected to seclusion.
25      (ii)    Number of children subjected to seclusion more than
26   once.
27      (iii)    Number of children secluded for more than three hours
28      (iv)    Number of children secluded for more than three hours
29   on more than one occasion.
30      (v)    Number of children restrained physically or

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 1   mechanically.
 2      (vi)    Number of children subjected to strip searches.
 3      (vii)     Number of children subjected to cavity searches.
 4      (viii)     Number of children educated in public school, on-
 5   grounds school or cyber program.
 6      (2)    All data under paragraph (1) shall be disaggregated by
 7   the following:
 8      (i)    Race.
 9      (ii)    Gender.
10      (iii)     Ethnicity.
11      (iv)    Sending jurisdiction.
12      (v)    Disability status, including a diagnoses under an
13   Individualized Education Program, 29 U.S.C. § 794 (relating
14   nondiscrimination under Federal grants and programs) or the
15   Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th
16   Edition: DSM-5, 2013, published by the American Psychiatric
17   Association.
18      (3)    Each quarterly report shall be published on the
19   department's publicly accessible dashboard by the twentieth day
20   of the month following the reporting quarter and shall be
21   available in machine-readable and open data formats.
22      (h)    As used in this section, the following words and phrases
23   shall have the meanings given to them in this subsection unless
24   the context clearly indicates otherwise:
25      "Chemical restraint" means a drug used to control acute,
26   episodic behavior that restricts the movement or function of a
27   child. The term does not include a drug ordered by a licensed
28   physician as part of ongoing medical treatment or as
29   pretreatment prior to a medical or dental examination or
30   treatment.

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 1      "Exclusion" means the removal of a child from the child's
 2   immediate environment and restricting the child alone to a room
 3   or area, even if the door is unlocked. The term does not include
 4   a situation in which a staff person remains in the exclusion
 5   area with the child.
 6      "Facility" means a setting, including a children's
 7   institution, youth development center, camp or other facility at
 8   which a child is held as a result of the child's alleged or
 9   actual dependency or delinquency under 42 Pa.C.S. Ch. 63
10   (relating to juvenile matters).
11      "Manual restraint" means a physical hands-on technique that
12   lasts more than one minute and that restricts the movement or
13   function of a child or portion of a child's body. The term does
14   not include a manual assist of any duration for a child during
15   which the child does not physically resist or a therapeutic hold
16   for a child who is eight years of age or younger for less than
17   ten minutes during which the child does not physically resist.
18      "Mechanical restraint" as follows:
19      (1)    A device that restricts the movement or function of a
20   child or portion of a child's body.
21      (2)    The term includes handcuffs, anklets, wristlets,
22   camisoles, helmets with fasteners, muffs and mitts with
23   fasteners, restraints to prevent exiting a hospital bed
24   unassisted, waist straps, head straps, papoose boards,
25   restraining sheets and similar devices.
26      (3)    The term does not include a device used:
27      (i)    To provide support for functional body position or
28   proper balance.
29      (ii)    For safe transportation to and from a facility or
30   medical treatment such as sandbags to limit movement after

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1   medical treatment, a wheelchair belt used for body positioning
2   and support or a helmet used for prevention of injury during
3   seizure activity.
4      "Solitary confinement" means isolating a child in a cell or
5   room, locked or unlocked, for punitive or disciplinary purposes.
6   The term does not include a cool-down or time-out period as
7   described under subsection (d)(1).
8      Section 2.   This act shall take effect in 60 days.




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