Safe Haven Location

Some of you may or may not know but, last week the Governor signed into law an amendment to the Illinois Safe Haven law. This law allows for the mother or father of a new born baby to be brought to a police dept or fire dept. to relinquish parental responsibilities.

Effective immediately all Colleges and Universities (public and private) that have police Depts. (Not Security Depts.) are now covered under this act. There are several requirements to the law the main one being: that the person delivering the infant can NOT be detained or questioned.

Other requirements are as follows:

• Infant can not be over 30 days old (Best judgement used)
• Must be handed over to a person on duty. CAN NOT drop and run.
• Department must then deliver the infant to the nearest available hospital for care. Hospital will then contact DCFS or appropriate agency.

Person/Officer on duty will attempt to give the delivering person the following forms:

• DCFS Help is Here Brochure
• State of Illinois Adoption Registry Information
• DCFS Taking Care of Yourself after Giving Birth
• Sign must be posted outside of the police department facility indicating that your police dept. is a Safe Haven location. Signs are metal and can be ordered off of the website.
• These forms are available on the Safe Haven Web site http://www.saveabandonedbabies.org/