At times, the state’s foster care system can appear to be a revolving door—with children in and out of different homes. Senate President Wilton Simpson has made it his priority to stop kids being bounced from place-to-place. He, along with Republican Senator Jason Brodeur, are spearheading an effort to provide more stability to children who may find themselves in unstable situations.
Foster care transitions can be hard on kids. When children are taken from their families and sent to foster or group homes it can cause trauma. Recently, Senate Children and Families Chairwoman Lauren Book read a statement from one of those children—a freshman college student who spent four years in foster care. That includes six placements—four in group homes and two in foster homes.
“One time, I was picked up at school by my case manager… got back to the group home to find all of my things had been taken out of my room and placed in the living room, packed up in trash bags. Later, when I got to the other placement, I realized a lot of my things were missing, like sentimental items.”
Book continues, “I felt alone because of the number of placements I had…I went to 5 different high schools in three different counties. I felt ashamed because of the rap I got…I felt unwanted because no one took the time to get to know me, my story.”
Today, that person is a freshman at a Florida university. The cycle described in the testimony is what Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur wants to stop—or at least, slow down. Brodeur’s proposal is aimed at giving children in the foster care system more stability. It’s also a response to news reports highlighting problems in placement within the child welfare system.
“For example, in one case, there was a 3-year-old boy who had been with a family for 18 months, more than half his life. Even though the foster family wanted to adopt him, he was abruptly moved to be placed with two half-siblings…then on the other hand a few months later a family was in the process of adopting their 2-year-old daughter’s infant brother, only to find out that was too traumatic to remove that child," he explained.
Out-of-home child placements are among the hardest decisions child welfare officials have to make. And the decisions can be just as devastating to foster families when the children are removed, as they can be to children. State law calls for keeping sibling groups together to the extent possible, but Republican Sen. Gayle Harrell worries Brodeur’s plan could go against that.
“We’re allowing now the placement of siblings, not based on keeping them together, but if you have a group and a small child under two, who may be more adoptable, placing them in a different location than the older children who may be more difficult to place," she said.
Brodeur says that’s not the intent of the bill and says he will work with Harrell to firm up the details. In its current form, the proposal still requires siblings be kept together if they were removed from their homes together, but it also makes special provisions for children under three-years-old. Senate President Wilton Simpson has endorsed it, along with several other measures aimed at cleaning up child welfare practices. That includes a plan by Senator Book to revamp how child welfare agencies track children in the system to ensure their safety.
“We know that sooner a child has a permanent living situation the better off they’ll be. And the reason we need to act now is because government makes a terrible parent. All children need a loving home. Let’s rally together to find permanent ones where they can thrive,” Simpson said in his opening day remarks to the chamber.
Simpson, who along with Brodeur was adopted, is also endorsing a bill to clarify that children who were in the care of DCF are exempt from tuition and fees at the state’s higher education institutions.
The Children’s Campaign, an organization that advocates for better practices in child welfare, has placed Book and Brodeur’s bills on its tracking list for the session.
