WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today received bipartisan committee approval for his child welfare policy improvements including promoting sibling connections in foster care and strengthening child support enforcement.
“Child welfare experts tell you and common sense tells you children benefit when they’re kept together and have strong relationships,” Grassley said. “This legislation removes barriers to federal law that prevent families of siblings from knowing when a child is placed in foster care or siblings from losing ties when parental rights are terminated. This will help maintain sibling relationships and in turn help the kids.
“The child support provisions help states recover money that family courts have determined is owed to custodial parents. We ought to do more to make sure money owed gets to the parents and children who need and deserve it. Child support enforcement helps make sure families are strong and independent.”
The Finance Committee approved the Grassley provisions as part of broad child welfare legislation, the Supporting At-Risk Children Act of 2013.
The sibling provisions are based on the Sibling Connections Act introduced by Grassley and Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia this week. The Sibling Connections Act follows the example of at least five states, including Iowa, that have passed legislation or regulation that recognizes the parents of siblings as “relatives” for foster care placement.
That means the parents of a child’s siblings are notified when the child enters foster care, allowing the adult guardians to try to maintain the sibling relationships.
Also, the bill corrects the current situation in which siblings lose their status as siblings when their parents’ rights are terminated. The loss of sibling status undermines the requirement of the landmark Fostering Connections law that siblings be placed together whenever possible.
The child support enforcement measures are drawn from legislation from Grassley and Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey. Provisions from their bill that passed in committee today would:
--Require the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to use federal and, if necessary, state child support enforcement methods to ensure compliance with any U.S. treaty obligations associated with any multilateral child support convention to which the United States is a party.
--Require states, in order to receive federal funding, to implement amendments made by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws to the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act.
--Expand access to the Federal Parent Locator Service to assist states in locating noncustodial parents, putative fathers, and custodial parties to ensure compliance with their child support obligations.
In addition to the Grassley-authored provisions, the broad children’s welfare bill that advanced today included several priorities of strong interest to Grassley, including reauthorizing adoption incentives; provisions to help reunite foster children with loved ones, and significant improvements to protect youth from sex trafficking.
Grassley is a long-time advocate for adoption and improving foster care, especially the challenges facing those who age out of the system. He is the co-founder and co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Caucus on Foster Youth. He has secured several key legislative improvements to promote adoption. More information is available
here.
Grassley is former chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee. He is a senior member of the committee.
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