Please take this quick poll to let us know what you would like us to prioritize during the 2019 Legislative Session in Washington State. The Fostering Change team has been busy working with statewide leaders and state representatives about current issues within the child welfare system. And guess what? We’ve been invited to present at the Kids Caucus during the upcoming legislative session. We are incredibly honored to share the voice of foster parents and educate our state leaders on topics like trauma, attachment and permanency for children in care. This is an amazing opportunity and we need your input! Thank you for participating!

Give Foster Parents the Same Consideration for Child Permanency as Relatives at 12 Months of Out of Home Care

Adhere to Federal Timelines to Permanency

Relative Search Completed within the First 6 Months of Dependency

Current Bonding and Attachment Research Used To Update Outdated Policies

Mandated Trauma-Informed Care Training for Caregivers/Professionals. (ie, DCYF staff, CASAs, attorneys and judges)

Stricter Visitation Guidelines in Severe Abuse and Neglect Cases

Ensuring Prompt CASA Assignment for Children in Out of Home Care

Statewide Taskforce To Identify Best Practices of Evidence Based Research

Better training for foster parents of school age and teens provided.

Professional foster parents I know this was talked about before, making it a profession and getting a “wage”, especially for those who take harder kids which makes it hard to work outside the home.

Streamline the paperwork process. We're in the 21st Century. Applications and paperwork should be able to be submitted online.

Follow texas in the icwa reformation

Group homes if no foster homes available

foster parent retention

Foster parents need to be treated better not like glorified babysitters quit telling them they can’t be told things

Involve some statisticians or grad students to look st reunification data and analyze information that could be predictive of child will return home, And form policy based off of that. For example, in cases when father refuses to establish paternity, ___% of children are reunited with that father in the end, or if in the case of a newborn in care, “statistically” if parents haven’t established regular visiting patterns or engaged with services, the likelihood of reunification is _____. So many of our cases I feel like we could say “yup, I called that outcome” and it is based off of anecdotal evidence (mom never came to see her after the hospital, no UAs ever completed, etc) , but what if there was actual research to support it and cases didn’t have to be one size fits all, but tailored to reflect the odds. For example, zero contact since birth, “95% of those cases end in TPR (or whatever the stats are) so let’s make our policies responsive to real life data with the option to flex for specific cases. We need a task force of staticians to look at the problem and identify the most salient predictors of failure to reunify.

Social workers need to know the current criminal status of bio parents before each visit. They need to be allowed to check or be notified if bio parents have active warrants or new criminal cases.

Give Foster a parents the same consideration for child permanency as relatives at 6 months of out of home care

Ask why foster kids don’t get their own legal counsel until 6mo after TPR (when window for appeals on said TPRs have closed) even though all other parties get legal counsel from day 1 of dependency?

Consider the best placement may not be with a relative. The foster parent needs far more consideration than a distant relative!

If bio parents are making no progress, it should not be a waiting game for at least 15 months until they can start talking changing from reunification plan. No progress after max 3 months (with room for some common sense exceptions) should begin looking to change permanency plan. So kinda along the lines of sticking to federal timelines but also what others have said about not having a one size fits all system.

COLA Ajustment