By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — The Senate Judiciary Committee has endorsed legislation that would give foster parents more information about the children in their care.
“This is definitely a good start, it’s a step in the right direction,” said Barbara Allen, a former state senator who testified in support of Senate Bill 394, which some have called the “foster parent bill of rights.”
Allen, an attorney, said she and her husband, a district court judge in Johnson County, had been denied information about a newborn baby that was placed in their care last Thanksgiving.
In February, the child was moved to the home of a relative who had indicated a willingness to adopt her.
Allen said that because she and her husband had cared from the child less than 6 months, they had no “legal standing” and would not be informed of the child’s whereabouts.
Allen said she and her husband felt like the state’s foster care laws take foster parents for granted and discourage some from remaining in the system.
‘Huge change’
SB 394 would change the six-month threshold to three months.
“That’s a huge change,” Allen said.
With legal standing, she said, foster parents would receive 30 days notice in writing prior to a child being moved from their home and the notice would explain the reason for the move.
If a foster parent objected to the proposed move, he or she could request a court hearing and the child would not be moved until after the court ruled that the move would be in the child’s best interest.
The bill also would allow foster parents access to more information about the children in their care and to make contact with a child’s previous foster parents.
Kathy Armstrong, staff attorney in charge of prevention and protection services at the Kansas Department for Children and Families, testified in favor of the measure, telling committee member that the agency’s earlier concerns about the bill had been resolved.
DCF and advocates for foster parents agreed to drop a provision creating an 8- to 10-member advisory board on foster care and adoption issues.
‘Move in the right direction’
Sen. Forrest Knox, an Altoona Republican and a former foster parent, expressed support for the bill, now called Senate Substitute for Senate Bill 394.
“It moves us in the right direction,” Knox said. “Hopefully, it will do some meaningful things.”
Last year, Knox said he intended to propose legislation creating a “new tier” of foster parents that would have more say in decision making in exchange for additional training and agreement to take in more difficult children.
But Wednesday, Knox said his proposal had not come together as quickly as he thought it might.
“These things take time,” he said. “I’m guessing it’ll be next year, maybe.”
Knox and his wife, Renee, have nine biological children, two of whom still live at home. The couple adopted four brothers — then ages 5, 7, 8 and 13 — two years ago after caring for them two years as foster parents.
Senate Substitute for Senate Bill 394 now goes to the full Senate.