The House and Senate introduced their 2015-2016 Health and Human Services (HHS) Omnibus Bills that will establish the HHS budget for the next two years: SF 825 and HF 850. The bill covers everything from child protection to health care to food services. This post will highlight the proposed policy changes to past child welfare [...]
[Uncredited photo from Governing Magazine] On August 13, 2013, Jonathan Walters looks at the myths and challenges of kinship care for children in the child welfare system for Governing magazine. In Agencies Taking a Second Look at Kinship Care, Walters relates a commonly uttered phrase when caseworkers hesitate to place children with relatives, "The apple [...]
Last week a local news organization, The City Pages, published a feature article about a contested adoption case that the Minnesota Supreme Court is reviewing. As with many of these cases, this story highlights systems issues in child welfare, the tension between biological family and foster families, racial differences, interjurisdictional placements between states and the [...]
A few weeks ago, we updated you on the new Adoption Assistance legislation that will go into effect in August 2012. Today we will summarize some of the other child welfare legislation that was enacted in the same legislative session. We will cover adoption policies in this post and in an upcoming post we will [...]