Idaho adds child-protection visitation restrictions and termination condition

Idaho's 2026 Senate Bill 1257 adds a visitation definition and restrictions for certain in-person visits to the Child Protective Act, and adds a separate condition to the statute governing termination of parental rights. The legislature's bill history identifies the measure as Session Law chapter 131, signed March 25, 2026; the act specifies July 1, 2026 as its effective date.

The new definition in Idaho Code section 16-1602(44) includes contact with a child's parent, guardian, custodian or siblings, including in-person, video, telephone and written contact. When the department has a substantiated claim of sexual abuse or qualifying physical abuse against a parent, guardian or custodian, the provision bars in-person visitation unless the court finds it in the child's best interest. For this subsection, physical abuse must have caused life-threatening, disabling or disfiguring injury or damage, or required medical treatment recommended by a medical provider. If permitted, the court must set written safety conditions.

Unless the court finds good cause to deviate, the written conditions include no time alone with the child, a prohibition on the child sitting on the person's lap when sexual abuse is substantiated, and no secret or other communication that cannot be monitored in real time. The act defines physical abuse and sexual abuse for this subsection and identifies five ways a claim may be substantiated.

Separately, the act adds section 16-2005(1)(a)(vi), addressing a parent incarcerated at the termination hearing who has been or likely will remain incarcerated for a substantial portion of the child's minority, when the department initiates termination for a child in its legal custody. The subsection also requires a finding that termination is in the child's best interest; the listed condition does not itself terminate parental rights.