Women of the House say Senate GOP budget chooses loopholes over families

They are mothers, grandmothers, daughters, and sisters. They're nurses, educators, and community activists. The women of the House Democratic caucus come from different backgrounds and different towns, but today they all shared one message: The Senate Republican budget proposal prioritizes special interest tax loopholes over our children and most vulnerable people.

Representatives Eileen Cody, Tami Green, Ruth Kagi, Laurie Jinkins, and Dawn Morrell led a group of women legislators calling out the problems for families in the Senate's plan. 

They pointed out that, instead of closing a single tax loophole -- many of which have been on the books for decades without any review -- the Senate actually includes 25 more loopholes.

Cuts in the budget plan include:

·  Childcare support for more than 4,500 families through Working Connections Childcare;

·  TANF Services – A temporary lifeline to struggling families used for the most basic of needs like rent assistance, school supplies and basic hygiene items;

·  Funding for career services and educational certification programs for the poor;

·  Required health care cost-sharing for low-income individuals, limiting access; 

·  Transitional housing services for seniors and reduced access to shelters for homeless families;

·  Corrections services, leading to early release of offenders;

·  Funding to home care services which keep seniors and the disabled from going into nursing homes;

·  Support for grandparents caring for their grandchildren, keeping them out of foster care; and

·  Legal services for low-income persons who need help to keep their homes.

 

Here is the full press release from today's event, and here are more comments about the budget plan.

Read this story in Spanish.

"Early Start" heading to Senate

Already a leader in the field of early learning, Washington state is poised to take another giant step toward preparing all kids for success in kindergarten and beyond under far-reaching legislation passed by the House last night.

House Bill 1723, by Rep. Ruth Kagi, creates a comprehensive system of early learning  that would be financed in large part by anticipated tax revenue from the 2012 legalization of marijuana under Initiative 502. 

“We want to give our kids – all our kids – a fair chance to achieve in school, and in life,” Kagi said. “Unfortunately, many 5-year-olds, especially from poor families, aren’t as well prepared for success as their more privileged classmates when they arrive at the kindergarten door. This ‘Early Start’ bill helps close that opportunity gap, which means more high-achieving and productive students, graduates and, ultimately, citizens of our state.”

Other bills in the families-and-children lineup approved Wednesday include:

HB 1671 expands the Working Connections Childcare Program that helps low-income families pay for child care while they work or look for work. It increases subsidies to keep pace with rising childcare costs and rewards providers who do an exceptional job caring for children. It passed 55-42.

HB 1285 requires a court to  appoint a lawyer to represent a child within 72 hours after the termination of the child’s relationship with his or her parents --  typically a prelude to foster care in cases of abuse, neglect or abandonment. Washington currently ranks 48th among the states in terms of legal representation for foster children. Children with legal representation spend less time in foster care, producing better outcomes for them and a savings for the state.

HB 1140 establishes a means for siblings to remain in contact if they are placed in different foster homes and cannot otherwise visit one another, provided a court determines that certain guidelines are met. It passed 64-33.

Read this story in Spanish.

Grant will help fund mental health care for foster kids

You may have missed the news when it came out last month, but with renewed national focus on mental health issues in the wake of a tragic school shooting in Connecticut last Friday, we think it's worth posting.

Our state is the recipient of a federal grant that will help fund the enhancement of mental health services for children in our foster care system.

While the amount - $639,000 - may not seem very large, every dollar goes to improving the process for identifying children in need of such services, streamlining coordination between mental health professionals and child welfare workers, and increasing our state's capacity to deliver care to those kids who need it most.

Even better, there is the possibility that the grant will expand over the next four years.

Children who enter the foster care system are at a high risk for mental health problems due to abuse, severe neglect, and the trauma of being removed from their family homes.  Identifying those children who may have a mental health disorder and getting them the services they need - the sooner, the better - greatly improves their chances for a positive outcome.

Here is the press release from the Department of Social and Health Services, and here is a brief piece the Columbian newspaper published about the award.

Read this story in Spanish here.

A great day for children and families...

Rep. Ruth Kagi

Amid the flurry of bills signed by Governor Gregoire today, three in particular are going to make a big difference in the child welfare arena.

Our state has been employing innovative and effective strategies to serve families in crisis for some time. We're focused on improving outcomes for these families, and that means keeping parents and children together if possible rather than breaking them apart.

But our success has hurt us.  Although we've seen an 18 percent decline in foster care placements since 2008, we've also had a reduction in state and federal child welfare dollars as a result.  That's because the funding formula for child welfare is based on the number of out-of-home placements.  Meanwhile, the innovative and effective strategies we use to try to avoid breaking families up are not adequately funded.  Rep. Ruth Kagi wrote about this problem in a Seattle Times guest editorial  in January.

That's one thing that's now going to change.  Today's package of child welfare reforms gives our state more flexibility in how we manage the limited dollars we have, and gives caseworkers new - and better - tools to help troubled families.  Two of the three bills signed were sponsored by Rep. Kagi, and the third is a Senate bill she helped champion in the House.

To read this post in Spanish, click here.

New Opportunities for Foster Kids in WA

The House marked Youth Advocacy Day in Olympia by passing House Bill 2592, which opens the doors of higher education for foster care children in Washington State. The bill, prime-sponsored by Representative Mary Helen Roberts, extends foster care services for youth aged 18-21 that are enrolled in a postsecondary or vocational education program.

The legislation builds upon the successful Foster Care to 21 program established in 2006. In 2008, lawmakers at the federal level passed the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act which provides federal matching funds for similar programs at the state level. HB 2592 makes necessary changes to Foster Care to 21 in order for our state to be eligible for these federal dollars.

The bill now heads over to the Senate for their consideration.

To read this story in Spanish, click here.

House focuses attention on foster kids

On any given day, there are 11,000 children in foster care in Washington State. Many of these children have parents who are working very hard to reunite with them, but thousands are awaiting adoption and thousands more are in foster care awaiting a permanent home.

With these numbers on their minds, the House of Representatives have passed a group of bills intended to protect and nurture our state’s most vulnerable residents – its foster children.

· Rep. Mary Helen Roberts’ HB 1961 extends a pilot program that will allow up to 50 foster youth per year to remain in foster care after the turn age 18. Current law considers foster kids to be adults and cuts them off the day of their 18th birthday, even if they are still in high school or enrolled in a higher ed program.

· Rep. Ruth Kagi’s HB 2106 launches a new strategy for using performance-based contracts to deliver child-welfare services. Experience in other states has proven that performance-based contracting can help keep children safely out of foster care and hasten reunification with their families when they are removed from home.

· Rep. Roberts HB 1938 encourages continued post-adoption contact among siblings who are not adopted together out of foster care.

· Rep. Eric Pettigrew’s HB 2164 continues past legislative efforts to find solutions to racial disproportionality in Washington’s child welfare system. A recent study showed that African American, Native American and Hispanic children are more likely to be referred to Child Protective Services than white children.

· Rep. Tina Orwall’s HB 1769, which passed the House on Friday, helps reunite families who have had children in the state’s foster care program by offering referrals to appropriate agencies or organizations and assistance with forms that will aid these families in attaining adequate, safe housing.