9:6-8.84 Definitions relative to child abuse, neglect.

2. As used in this act:

"Board" means the Child Fatality and Near Fatality Review Board established under P.L.1997, c.175 (C.9:6-8.83 et al.).

"Child" means any person under the age of 18.

"Commissioner" means the Commissioner of Children and Families.

"Division" means the Division of Child Protection and Permanency in the Department of Children and Families.

"Near fatality" means a case in which a child is in serious or critical condition, as certified by a physician.

"Panel" means a citizen review panel as established under P.L.1997, c.175 (C.9:6-8.83 et al.).

"Parent or guardian" means a person defined pursuant to section 1 of P.L.1974, c.119 (C.9:6-8.21) who has the responsibility for the care, custody, or control of a child or upon whom there is a legal duty for such care.

"Reasonable efforts" means attempts by an agency authorized by the Division of Child Protection and Permanency to assist the parents in remedying the circumstances and conditions that led to the placement of the child and in reinforcing the family structure, as defined in section 7 of P.L.1991, c.275 (C.30:4C-15.1).

"Sexual abuse" means contacts or actions between a child and a parent or caretaker for the purpose of sexual stimulation of either that person or another person. Sexual abuse includes:

a. the employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of any child to engage in, or assist any other person to engage in, any sexually explicit conduct or simulation of such conduct;

b. sexual conduct including molestation, prostitution, other forms of sexual exploitation of children, or incest; or

c. sexual penetration and sexual contact as defined in N.J.S.2C:14-1 and a prohibited sexual act as defined in N.J.S.2C:24-4.

"Significant bodily injury" means a temporary loss of the functioning of any bodily member or organ or temporary loss of any one of the five senses.

"Withholding of medically indicated treatment" means the failure to respond to a child's life-threatening conditions by providing treatment, including appropriate nutrition, hydration, and medication which, in the treating physician's reasonable judgment, will most likely be effective in ameliorating or correcting all such conditions. The term does not include the failure to provide treatment, other than appropriate nutrition, hydration, or medication to a child when, in the treating physician's reasonable medical judgment:

a. the child is chronically and irreversibly comatose;

b. the provision of such treatment would merely prolong dying, not be effective in ameliorating or correcting all of the child's life-threatening conditions, or otherwise be futile in terms of the survival of the child; or

c. the provision of such treatment would be virtually futile in terms of the survival of the child and the treatment itself under such circumstances would be inhumane.

L.1997, c.175, s.2; amended 1999, c.53, s.16; 2006, c.47, s.58; 2012, c.16, s.38.