Interstate Compact Information

The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children

The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children is a uniform law enacted by all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands to ensure protection and services to children who are placed across state lines for foster care, temporary placement for services in residential treatment facilities between party states, or as a preliminary to adoption. The compact establishes uniform guidelines and procedures to ensure these placements promote the best interests of each child.

Interstate Compact for Juveniles

The Department of Children's Services monitors the movement of youths on probation, or parole, coming into and out of Tennessee. The compact allows the state to return runaway youth to their home state.

The Interstate Commission for Juveniles (ICJ) is established to fulfill the objectives of the Compact, through means of joint cooperative action among the Compacting states to promote, develop and facilitate a uniform standard that provides for the welfare and protection of youths, victims and the public by governing the Compacting states’ transfer of supervision of youths, temporary travel of defined offenders and return of youths who have absconded, escaped, fled to avoid prosecution or run away.

Sources: juvenilecompact.org, (Authority: Tenn. Code Ann. § 37-4-101 (2017), Crime Control Act, codified in 4 U.S.C. § 112 (1965)

For more information on the Interstate Compact for Juveniles, please visit that section.