Kentucky Foster Care Situation Unacceptable
Kentucky Foster Care in Need of More Help
FRANKFORT– Just over a month after a new law went into effect lawmakers heard from officials involved with the implementation of House Bill 1.
The Child Welfare Oversight Committee heard from members of the Department for Community Based Services and the Judicial Branch on the implementation of the measure. The wide ranging bill focused on overhauling the adoption and foster care system—it seeks to strengthen support to help keep families together by tightening the timeline for termination of parental rights. It establishes the Child Welfare Oversight and Advisory Committee within the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, gives grandparents and other kinship providers more rights, and foster parents more input in the child welfare process.
The 2018-20 biennium budget increased funding to the department, allowing them to hire more personnel to work within the department—such as social workers. The budget included $14 million for the workforce but despite the increase in funding, more than …. read on