The Legislature took three actions this week that will help foster care children — passing two bills aiming at finding kids adoptive homes and adding money to the budget to help keep struggling families together.
House Bills 27 and 200 both passed the Senate on Tuesday. They work in tandem to get kids out of the foster care system more quickly and into permanent homes. They also focus on keeping children with family members by reducing barriers for extended family to apply for placement preferences. Representative Les Gara, who sponsored HB 27, said the bills will keep kids from bouncing from foster home to foster home.
“Our bill sort of helps find adoptive families for youth so they don’t bounce in the foster system when they weren’t going to be reunified with their families anyway. And the governor’s bill speeds up the adoption process,” Gara said.
HB 200 streamlines legal proceedings allowing one judge to look at multiple aspects of a family’s case.
The Legislature also added $2.3 million to the budget for family reunification and retention. Gara said it will go toward programs that aim to keep families together so they don’t have to enter the foster system in the first place.
“If we can keep families together it’s frankly more humane and it’s cheaper than paying for a foster care system for a child that could have stayed with a family that could get their act together,” Gara said.
Alaska has the nation’s second highest number per capita of foster youth awaiting permanent homes. Both bills are headed to the governor’s desk to sign.
Anne Hillman is the healthy communities editor at Alaska Public Media and a host of Hometown, Alaska. Reach her at ahillman@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Anne here.
