These days at the legislature, it’s rare for both parties to agree on anything. Some of our veteran legislators are leaving, citing the political climate, like Senator Palumbo, Senator Roman Prezioso, Delegate John Shott, and Delegate Tim Miley.
But there’s an important bill moving through the legislature that has strong bipartisan support— House Bill 4092, Relating to Foster Care.
I believe the bill has been called “Foster Care 2.0” because it builds on foster care reform from the previous session, where lines were certainly drawn between the parties.
But instead of making foster care an issue for an election year, a group of legislators are working together to improve/update foster care laws– such as a foster child and foster parent “bill of rights.” And ironing out bureaucratic red tape identified by foster families to make parenting easier for them.
The purpose of this bill is to update the laws on foster care. Creating a foster child and foster parent bill of rights and further defining the reasonable and prudent parent standard. Already into our second week of session, the bill has passed out (with amendments) from House Health to Judiciary.
Here are the bill sponsors:
| LEAD SPONSOR: | Hill |
| SPONSORS: | Pack, Summers, Espinosa, Hanna, Worrell, Estep-Burton, Lavender-Bowe, Pushkin, Thompson, C., Walker |
Special thanks, rounds of applause, and high fives to these folks for putting kids before politics.
