<p><strong>South Bend Tribune</strong></p>
<p>It would be remiss of us not to praise the passage of a measure that redefines a child’s near death in deciding what records should be released to the public.</p>
<p>We’ve pushed for more openness at the Department of Child Services. Such transparency is desperately needed, not as a finger-pointing exercise but to help make sure that all of us do a better job of keeping kids safe.</p>
<p>The calls for more transparency and a focus on the near deaths of children are taking place on a national level. According to the chairman of the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities, new research suggests that studying near-fatal events of child abuse may be important because “near fatalities are similar to fatalities in almost every way we can measure them.”</p>
<p>Senate Bill 131, introduced by state Sen. John Broden, D-South Bend, is a step toward more openness when Indiana children are seriously injured.</p>
<p>While Indiana law has long stipulated that DCS records should be made public in the death or near death of a children, it didn’t say what a “near fatality” is — meaning that those records were in practice never released.</p>
