Congress, Move Fast on Foster Care Reform Bills!
- by: Susan V
- recipient: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan,
A bipartisan effort in Congress is moving toward reform of the national foster care system. For many victims of states’ so-called child protective services, this reform is long overdue.
Thousands of stories exposing widespread CPS corruption have flooded social media and are finally being noticed by mainstream sources, making it clear that the current system is broken.
As the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform pointed out years ago, a main incentive behind CPS workers unjustly and often unlawfully removing children from homes is financial.
The abuse began with misappropriation of funds allotted by the Family Preservation and Family Support Act of 1993, which despite its name, ended up supporting foster care and adoption over family preservation. Later the “Adoption and Safe Families Act,” allowed even more money to be spent on adoption and less on helping families.
After conducting hearings on this issue, Senator Ron Wyden of the Senate Finance Committee has just introduced the Family Stability and Kinship Care Act, that Wyden says “would give states the flexibility to use federal funds to pay for preventive services that can stabilize families and keep kids out of foster care and safe at home or with kin.” Texas Representative Wayne Doggett is expected to introduce a companion bill in the House.
Ask Senator Hatch and Representative Paul Ryan to ensure these bills are drafted properly to prevent the abuse connected with our child welfare system far too long - and that they are presented to Congress for hearings without further delay.
We, the undersigned, agree that the current child protection and foster care systems are broken, and too many families are suffering horribly from unnecessary removal of children from their homes.
According to the Finance Committee’s webpage, “More than 60 organizations have expressed support for the bill, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators and the Children’s Defense Fund.»
Senator Wyden notes in his comments on the webpage that in many cases children are taken from parents just because they are poor and can’t afford to pay for child care while they work two or more jobs to pay the bills. There are simply no good choices given to these parents who are doing their best.
“Somewhere in America,“ Wyden pointed out, “a mother has to choose between leaving her kids at home alone to work a nightshift, and losing the wages that allow her to barely scrape by….The current child welfare funding system provides two choices: put kids in foster care or do nothing. There must be a better option for families who need just a little bit of extra help and this bill will give the system flexibility to respond to real-life situations of families in need.”
Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett, of the House Ways and Means subcommittee with jurisdiction over the nation’s foster care system, says he plans to sponsor a companion bill in the House. His comments are also included on the website:
“I am pleased to join Senator Wyden’s important initiative. Our current system is failing too many children and dividing too many families. More resources must be directed toward preventing abuse and neglect of children and to providing the support to keep families together,” Doggett said. "With early engagement, the need for foster care can be reduced substantially."
Based on these comments, it appears the main purpose of the new bills is what it should be - to end incentives that remove children unnecessarily from loving parents and other kin and help families with what is necessary to keep children safe in their own homes.
Based on the number of cases of CPS abuse being reported and documented, it is imperative that this matter be addressed expeditiously.
We ask that these new bills ensure that the kind of abuse, which occurred with previous legislation that only pretended to preserve families, will not be repeated and that legislation reforming the current system and helping families stay together be presented to Congress by both Houses without further delay.
Thanks for your time.
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