Child Fatality Review

Child Fatality Review (CFR) is a collaborative process that can help us better understand why child fatalities occur within the community, and help us identify how we can prevent future deaths. CFR teams are multidisciplinary, professional teams which will conduct a comprehensive, in-depth review of a child’s death and the circumstances and risk factors involved, and then seek to understand how and why the child died so that future injury and death can be prevented.

IC 16-49 requiring child fatality review teams in each county, with coordination and support for these teams to be provided by the Indiana Department of Health.

Each local child fatality review team will be made up of a coroner/deputy coroner, a pathologist, and pediatrician or family practice physician, and local representatives from law enforcement, the local health department, DCS, emergency medical services, a school district within the region, fire responders, the prosecuting attorney’s office, and the mental-health community. The teams are required to review all deaths of children under the age of 18 that are sudden, unexpected or unexplained, all deaths that are assessed by DCS, and all deaths that are determined to be the result of homicide, suicide, accident, or are undetermined.

Vanderburgh/Warrick County Safe Kids serves as the community action team for the review team.