CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – Putting the needs of foster children first is what some lawmakers say is the heart of a bill that aims to minimize foster care children from being bounced back and forth between homes.
House Bill 2027 centers on when a child can and cannot be removed from a foster home.
The measure, House Bill 2027, says that if a child has been in an appropriate and safe foster care arrangement, including a foster family, for 15 months or 50% of the child’s life, then the department cannot terminate that placement unless it’s in the child’s best interest.
Current state law sets the window at 18 months.
The bill will change how the Department of Human Services handles reunifying foster children with their biological siblings.
State Del. Jonathan Pinson, R-Mason, said reunification of the siblings is still a priority, but it shortens the timeframe.
“Unfortunately, there’s not a wand that we can wave, there’s not a bill that we can pass that’s going to fix all of them in one fell swoop, but what you have in front of them today is one opportunity to address one specific problem of children who are bounced around from foster home to foster home, often times at no fault of their own and at no fault of the foster parent,” Pinson said.
The bill also mandates that DoHS find a child’s biological siblings and families of siblings within 90 days, and the department must inform foster or adoptive parents of eligible siblings for placement or adoption.
The bill would change current state law from “shall” to “may” when it comes to prioritizing sibling reunification.
Del. Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, was one of two delegates who voted against the bill.
“I have to vote to protect the nuclear family. I have to vote to protect the parents raising their children in a nuclear family. Rather than a government that is agnostic at best dictating where children go and children losing their blood tie that gives them their identity,” Steele said.
Among those in favor of the bill, Del. Elliott Pritt, R-Fayette, was brought to tears as he spoke about his late father being removed from his biological family at the age of 3 and allowed to remain with his foster family for several years.
“You can see in the notes in my dad’s CPS file the care and concern those workers had for him knowing that the worst thing that could happen to him was to go back to his family. They kept him. If my dad was a foster child today, he would have been sent back to that family and pulled out and sent back and pulled out. My dad was a successful man and a good a father because he gave us everything he didn’t have. It’s important for you to realize my dad broke blood curses by being removed from his family,” Pritt said.
The bill passed the House on a vote of 97-2.
To read the full bill, click or tap here.
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