Relating to the admissibility of certain hearsay statements in the adjudication of certain sexual or assaultive offenses committed against a child or a person with a disability.

Contracts

• Third-Party Security & Investigation: Review Master Service Agreements (MSAs) with external security or forensic investigation vendors. Scope of work clauses must acknowledge that reports regarding altercations between minors (ages 13-17) are now subject to relaxed hearsay rules and likely admissible in adjudication.
• Confidentiality Agreements: Update NDAs for employees handling sensitive minor data to reflect that "internal notes" regarding assaults are now statutory evidence.

Hiring/Training

• Documentation Neutrality Training: Staff at schools, RTCs, and healthcare facilities must be retrained on incident reporting. Because statements by victims up to age 18 are now admissible without the victim's direct testimony, staff notes must be verbatim and devoid of subjective interpretation to survive a reliability hearing.
• Legal Defense Staff: Defense counsel must be trained to challenge the "reliability" of statements made by older teenagers, a demographic previously excluded from this hearsay exception.

Reporting & Record-Keeping

• Intake Forms: Update all intake and assessment forms to align the definition of "Person with a Disability" with Texas Penal Code Section 22.04. Discard old forms that use the previous Family Code definition.
• Evidence Retention: Adjust data retention policies for video/audio recordings of forensic interviews. Expect an increase in subpoenas for raw footage involving victims aged 13-17.

Fees & Costs

• Litigation Costs: Anticipate increased billable hours for "reliability hearings" (Section 54.031(e)) as defense counsel challenges the admissibility of statements made by the newly included 13-17 age group.
• Liability Insurance: No direct fee, but an increase in adjudicated delinquency in your facility may impact premiums for General Liability/Professional Liability policies upon renewal.