Adult Protection Multidisciplinary Teams
Senate Bill 400 creates a new Article in Chapter 108A of the North Carolina General Statutes authorizing local adult protection multidisciplinary teams. The bill’s stated purpose is to improve the prevention, identification, and response to abuse, neglect, and exploitation of disabled adults and older adults by allowing professionals from multiple disciplines to review selected adult protective services cases and coordinate services. It distinguishes between two kinds of teams: case review teams, which focus on active individual cases, and systemic review teams, which may address broader service gaps and community education, though the bill itself applies only to the case review teams it authorizes.
Under the bill, each county may form its own team or join a multicounty team, with membership required to include social services, law enforcement, prosecutors, public guardians, mental health, long-term care ombudsman, public health, health care, aging services, and victim advocacy representatives. The local department of social services director plays a central administrative role, including setting procedures, selecting cases for review, keeping records, and reporting annually. The Department of Health and Human Services must provide training materials, and the Social Services Commission may adopt rules to implement review protocols.
The bill amends Chapter 108A by adding Article 6B, which expressly authorizes information sharing among multidisciplinary team members for adult protective services case review and service coordination, notwithstanding other state law except where federal law prohibits disclosure. It also creates confidentiality rules, requires signed confidentiality acknowledgments, limits disclosure of reporter identities, and exempts team meetings from the open meetings law. Counties may establish single-county or multicounty teams, and the law becomes effective October 1, 2025, affecting local departments of social services, county boards, prosecutors, law enforcement, health and aging agencies, and service providers involved in adult protective services.
The bill appears to have broad bipartisan support and little visible opposition. It passed the Senate 45-0 on second reading and the House 109-0 on second reading, indicating strong consensus that coordinated multidisciplinary review is beneficial for protecting vulnerable adults. The enacted law reflects a policy preference for collaboration, confidentiality safeguards, and local flexibility in implementation.
No committee transcript or recorded debate is provided, and the roll-call votes show no opposition, so there is no documented substantive controversy in the available materials. The main policy balance built into the bill is between expanding information sharing for case review and preserving confidentiality, especially for reporters of abuse and for inactive cases. Another structural point is local control: counties may choose single-county or multicounty teams, and the bill allows but does not require broader systemic review teams, which may have been intended to reduce administrative burden while still encouraging coordination.