Rhode Island General Laws 42-72.1-4. License required
(a) No person shall provide continuing full-time care for a child apart from the child’s parents without a license issued pursuant to this chapter. This requirement does not apply to a person related by blood, marriage, guardianship, or adoption to the child. Licensing requirements for child daycare services are governed by § 42-12.5-4 et seq.
Terms Used In Rhode Island General Laws 42-72.1-4
- Child: means any person less than eighteen (18) years of age; provided, that a child over eighteen (18) years of age who is nevertheless subject to continuing jurisdiction of the family court, pursuant to chapter 1 of Title 14, or defined as emotionally disturbed according to chapter 7 of Title 40. See Rhode Island General Laws 42-72.1-2
- Child caring agency: means any facility that provides residential treatment, residential group homecare or semi-independent living, or residential assessment and stabilization. See Rhode Island General Laws 42-72.1-2
- Child-placing agency: means any private or public agency that receives children for placement into independent living arrangements, supervised apartment living, residential group care facilities, family foster homes, or adoptive homes. See Rhode Island General Laws 42-72.1-2
- Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
- Department: means the department of children, youth and families (DCYF). See Rhode Island General Laws 42-72.1-2
- Director: means the director of the department of children, youth and families, or the director's designee. See Rhode Island General Laws 42-72.1-2
- person: may be construed to extend to and include co-partnerships and bodies corporate and politic. See Rhode Island General Laws 43-3-6
- Related: means any of the following relationships, by marriage, blood, or adoption, even following the death or divorce of a natural parent: parent, grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, and first cousin. See Rhode Island General Laws 42-72.1-2
(b) The licensing requirement does not apply to shelter operations for parents with children, boarding schools, recreation camps, nursing homes, hospitals, maternity residences, and centers for developmentally disabled children.
(c) No person, firm, corporation, association, or agency, other than a parent, shall place, offer to place, or assist in the placement of a child in Rhode Island, for the purpose of adoption, unless the person, firm, corporation, or agency shall have been licensed for those purposes by the department or is a governmental child-placing agency, and that license shall not have been rescinded at the time of placement of a child for the purpose of adoption. The above does not apply when a person, firm, corporation, association, or agency places, offers to place, or assists in the placement of a child in Rhode Island, for the purpose of adoption through a child-placement agency duly licensed for child-placement in the state or through the department of children, youth and families, nor when the child is placed with a father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandparent, or stepparent of the child.
(d) No parent shall assign or otherwise transfer to another not related to him or her by blood or marriage, his or her rights or duties with respect to the permanent care and custody of his or her child under eighteen (18) years of age unless duly authorized so to do by an order or decree of court.
(e) No person shall bring or send into the state any child for the purpose of placing him or her out, or procuring his or her adoption, or placing him or her in a foster home without first obtaining the written consent of the director, and that person shall conform to the rules of the director and comply with the provisions of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, chapter 15 of Title 40.
(f) [Deleted by P.L. 2019, ch. 88, art. 4, § 21].
(g) No state, county, city, or political subdivision shall operate a child placing agency, child caring agency, foster and adoptive home, or children’s behavioral health program or facility without a license issued pursuant to this chapter.
(h) No person shall be exempt from a required license by reason of public or private, sectarian, non-sectarian, court-operated child placement program, child caring agency, foster and adoptive home, or children’s behavioral health program for profit or nonprofit status, or by any other reason of funding, sponsorship, or affiliation.
History of Section.
P.L. 1986, ch. 254, § 5; P.L. 1986, ch. 274, § 5; P.L. 2019, ch. 88, art. 4, § 21.