P.R. Laws tit. 8, § 444b
The Department shall offer, provide, and coordinate support services to families in order to promote and reinforce values, knowledge, attitudes, and behavior in the pursuit of a peaceful and violent free environment to live and raise children in harmony. These services may include counseling, social work services, shelter, medical attention, and processing legal actions, among others.
No effort to support families must place the minors or other members of the family at risk of abuse or violence. The Department of the Family shall offer, provide, and coordinate protective services for minors when the father, mother, or other person in charge of caring for protecting, and guaranteeing the wellbeing of the minor in his or her care is unable to meet the protective criteria that guarantee the optimum wellbeing of the minor. When the Department identifies an adult who is a nonabusing victim of violence in the family of a minor who has been abused, or is suspected of having been abused, it shall provide-directly or in coordination-support and protective services aimed at ensuring the adult’s safety and wellbeing. When this nonabusing adult who is the victim of violence and is the father, mother, or the adult responsible for rearing the minor, the Department shall make every necessary effort to ensure his or her safety and wellbeing as part of the effort to protect the minor. Whenever possible, nonabusing adults shall be kept with their dependant minors.
The Department of the Family shall see to the coordination of the multisector support and protective services to ensure the greatest wellbeing of the minors and their best interests.
History —Aug. 1, 2003, No. 177, § 5, eff. 90 days after Aug. 1, 2003.