The Children Systems Review Act, HB 1734 by Ron Peters and Brian Crain, has passed both the House and Senate and now moves to conference committee. OPEA needs comments and concerns from child welfare workers by May 1.
“Major initiatives are finalized in conference committee,” said OPEA Policy and Research Director Trish Frazier. “For the next few weeks OPEA will have an opportunity to influence the process and make changes in the bill.”
OPEA is concerned legislators are not discussing new funding to help implement the bill.
“The claim is that we take too many children into custody and money saved by keeping children in their homes can pay for reforms,” said Frazier. “However, workers will be needed to monitor marginal homes and ensure the safety of the children.”
Another controversy is moving swift adoption workers into the field to do investigations and permanency planning. The work of the adoption unit must also be distributed to the field or children will languish longer in foster care.
The bill states legislative intent to provide child welfare workers with pay increases based on performance, but there has been no discussion of funding this section of the bill.
“In addition to pay, OPEA is very concerned with child welfare caseloads,” said Frazier. “The bill does not provide for additional workers for implementation or to reduce current caseloads.”
OPEA is collecting information and concerns about HB 1734 from child welfare workers. Please click here to read the bill summary and submit your comments by May 1 to Trish Frazier at trishf@opea.org. OPEA will meet with the authors of the bill and discuss worker concerns.
Posted on
Tue, April 21, 2009
by Trish Frazier