The Critical Investigations Unit receives "critical incident notifications" directly from child-serving state agencies. These agencies are statutorily required to notify the DCA whenever there is:

"A fatality, near-fatality, or serious bodily or emotional injury of a child who is in the custody of or receiving services from a state agency, or circumstances that result in a reasonable belief that a state agency failed in its duty to protect a child, resulting in the imminent risk or suffering of serious bodily or emotional injury, or death of a child."*

The DCA takes this responsibility very seriously and has worked closely with all child-serving agencies to ensure they are aware of both the requirement to report critical incidents to the DCA, but to also do so within the statutory 24-hour time frame.

Because critical incident notifications are communicated directly to the unit from other agencies, there is no public-facing contact information for the unit.  If you have a complaint against a child-serving agency you may file it through the Investigations Unit.

Information about the number and types of critical incidents reported to the DCA can be found in our annual reports.

* SC Code of Law Ann. Section 63-11-2230.