Legislation Continues Focus on Child Welfare, Foster Care

Details: 19 April 2013

After some poorly conceived and developed legislation created a "safe haven" debacle a few years ago, the Nebraska Legislature has bounced back conscientiously in responding to child welfare issues. The "safe haven" experience exposed serious problems and deficiencies in the state’s response to children in difficult and negative, if not dangerous, circumstances involving parenting and family-life.

Among the efforts to improve the child-welfare system, including establishment of a Nebraska Children’s Commission for oversight, has been attention to upgrading the use and governance of foster care. This year, for example, four legislative bills are on a path to enactment.

LB 530, now pending on Final Reading, proposes to upgrade the rates paid to those who provide foster care for children entrusted to the state. The goal is to better reflect the actual cost of caring for these children. It stems from recommendations made by a temporary study committee set up by legislation in 2012.

As of July 1, 2014, rates for the care of infants from birth through age five would increase from $436 to $608 per month. Rates paid for the care of children from ages six through 11 would increase from $592 to $699 per month and the rates for older children would increase from $685 to $760 per month. These rates would apply statewide.

With LB 265, Senator Colby Coash from Lincoln seeks to make it easier for foster children to be placed in kinship homes and relative homes. The bill has advanced to Final Reading.

Kinship home is defined as one wherein at least one of the primary caretakers has previously lived with, or is a trusted adult that has a preexisting, significant relationship with the child or a sibling of the child. Relative home is one wherein at least on of the primary caretakers is related to the child or a sibling by blood, marriage or adoption.

LB 265 would make state licensure optional for kinship homes and relative homes. Approval by the state Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS), involving a home visit and criminal background checks, would still be required. For such homes that do pursue licensure, non-safety requirements could be waived.

LB 216 seeks to work against poor outcomes for young people who "age out" of foster care. Given the title Young Adult Voluntary Services and Support Act, this legislation would make it possible for 19 and 20 year-olds—former state wards—who meet prescribed eligibility criteria, to voluntarily enter into an agreement with NDHHS for extended services, including medical assistance, post-secondary-education, residential placement, continued foster-care maintenance and case management.

LB 216 was advanced to the full Legislature by the Health and Human Services Committee and as of the 60th legislative day, April 16, had advanced to the second round of floor debate. The bill has a fiscal note, i.e., a price tag, which could be a barrier to its enactment, depending on where it fits as a spending priority. The projected annual cost is approximately $7 million, a little over half of which could be federal funds.

Relative to federal funding, LB 269, which also is now pending at the second stage of consideration by the full Legislature, would direct NDHHS to capture all allowable foster-care maintenance costs from Title IV-E of the pertinent federal law. A previously legislated Medicaid crossover analysis pointed out such opportunities.

The aforementioned four legislative bills address particular aspects of the foster-care system and seek to continue with positive, constructive reforms that make the system better for vulnerable children. Another bill pertaining to foster care, LB 385, does not fit that characterization in the view of the Nebraska Catholic Conference. In fact, the Conference, under the direction of the three Diocesan Bishops, is opposed to the bill and submitted testimony reflecting that position.

LB 385 proposes to dictate that NDHHS "not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, marital status, or national origin" when determining "the suitability of any out-of-home placement of a juvenile."

Obviously, the intent of that provision is to statutorily authorize foster care placements in households with one or more unmarried adults, including same-sex partners. But the wording is deceptively ambiguous, especially so given the fact that the sentence that follows says that placement decisions "shall be made based upon the health, safety, and well-being of the child." Fulfilling that mandate would seem to be impossible if the department is precluded from considering any and all of the factors listed in the ban on discrimination. What’s more, the idea smacks of experimentation, because, the social-science research on the impact of placement of children in households other than those of married husbands and wives—fathers and mothers—is, at the very least, not beyond reasonable dispute.

LB 385 was not designated as a priority bill and after a rather chaotic hearing in front of the Judiciary Committee, is held by the committee. As a matter of policy, the idea at the core of LB 385 ought to end there.