Transcripts For CSPAN2 Paris 20240627

[background noises] [inaudible conversations] [background noises] the committee will come back to order. I now recognize mr. Buchanan from florida. Think it mr. Chairman appreciate the opportunity we also want to thank our witnesses by note ms. Hilton a lot of other offices on the helper you are relentless grandfather 10 children nine and under. I read the country is made up of 25 are kids. They make up one 100 the future so that your work and the Committee Work is huge. I just ask you what i think i tu been involved with nine different states the potential impacts and we can help you and others get the best return for that tax a pair have the biggest impact in terms of the kids in the country. To push in one direction or another. You would be a couple of big things we can make a big difference to weigh in on . Thank you so much. I appreciate your kind words and i appreciate your question. I work at the federal and state level to enact change. At the federal level will be reauthorized and Data Collection. To outlaw abusive practices like restraint and seclusion by a single requirement with an unannounced visit. An increase of private communication with families and child so they can report abuse if it is occurring. All of this helps reforming facilities and i will not stop until all use are safe. Thank you. Let me ask you youve been involved for a lot of years. As you look out there or what more can we weigh in . I mentioned her biggest takeaways for us today in terms of policies or practices or things it made a difference in various states and here in washington. The big thing we can do is invest in the alternatives to what we know is not good for children. Which is residential treatment when it is unnecessary. We need to start investing and n keeping Families Together. For the relatively small number of children who do need to be removed and willing to invest in family which includes kinship caregivers and non kin foster care. Ms. Peterson you have an incredible story. All of your do. You said you had a mentor. You must have at other people who were supportive that made a difference in your life along the way. How does your faith make a difference in you getting through this process . I think my faith gives me purpose to continue. So many youth in foster care struggle with muzzle health issues. Faith is not ala bandaid that slaps on and heals all. I do believe faith gives me purpose to continue and to npersevere when might Mental Health has been hard. When the trauma comes back and when theects of foster care play out in adulthood. I think a continuous purposes what myy faith offers me. Thank you kneeled back. Irmr. Doggett. Thank you,y, mr. Chairman. Certainly the storage of toll today are compelling and they focus new attention on this problem. The work youre doing is advocates the work youre doing is very touching unfortunately the stories you are telling may be unique. Theyre not new to this committee. What we will do about them. What kind of resources we will devote to solving problems the committee has left unsolved in the past. So much of the abuse i believe results primarily from the failure of states like my home state of texas to provide either Adequate Funding or appropriate oversight and enforcement of the foster care system. Residentialreatment facility and other youth based settings. Texas has a truly disgraceful distinctionld the highest ratesf neglect fallacies. Children die because estate is negligent but little oversight in texas today is mostly the result of United States district judge janice jack determined obstruction of the Abbott Administration in the perry administration. For over a decade judge jacked is penalized texas reviling the Constitutional Rights should be free from unreasonable risk of harm. Thanks to continue interference by the fifth circuit who is responsible for so many wrong decisions has been a more limited than she would have liked them to be told texas accountable for a week and time restrictions again and again. Appointed Court Monitors have reported little improvement in the foster care citizen. Ongoing litigation and supervision for earlier this year she ordered 100,000 per day fine against the state of texas for routinely neglecting and respond to allegations with neglect. One outrageous examplele identified during a complaint during this past a staff of accused of raping a young girl under his care for a residential facility. The girl has remained exposed to the worker for over a year until she was dumped into an emergency room alone with her jaw broken into places. That keeps reoccurring these events when states fail to do the job. Arrest with the states come this committee could do much more. When i personally served about a decade ago was then called the Human Resource subcommittee. I strongly advocated for much stronger federal funding for the safety of the children Foster Parents need more support particularly when caring for the special needs ofhe children ande must strengthen our caseworker workforce to increase the visits and these council. Ultimately robust investments were approved in the community. The long tradition to insist any improvements in the foster care system. Other children are the w jurisdiction of the Human Resourceen subcommittee. Even a proposal advance would not raise taxes but simply have required the filing of the tax form for alimony payments generated 2 billion to protect our children was rejected for the state of texas ultimately obstructed the approach was later advanced. We know in more recent times states because of pandemic funding we provided have done some Creative Things in st. Petersburg, florida, youth opportunity grants for youth are aging out. At madison, wisconsin more housing for foster children. I would like to ask with limited resources with the battle we will have over them again with that many things you and the w other witnesses have identified where it can we do the most good with the most amount of money thats going to be available . Thank you for the question, congressman. Youre asking a central question for this committee which is how to turn around a system and decline or not functioning without investing and the alternatives to what yourema doing now . It is impossible to dismantle one part of the system without at the same time increasing the supply of alternatives. You mentioned two areas of incredible need for investment. One is that workforce but nothing can be done without quality workforce. Every reform that you want to see requires we have a strong workforce. As part of the strong workforce must include Foster Parents. Kin and non kin Foster Parents. One of the outcomes most critical children is stability and care. It is not good to remove a child. We should be doing much more to prevent it. When a child is placed in a foster home and they have stability of the outcomes we care about are better. So how do we support kin and non kin fosterr parents to give kids that stability . Thank you, thank you to all the witnesses and he yelled back. Thank you, mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman certainly thank you to our entireel panel for compelling perspectives. They experience insights that you bring. This could very well be one of the most important hearings we have for a long time. I was honored to chair the hum reurce subcommittee that was just mtioned. We were able to complete the work on the bipartisan act. In 2018. Its been a while already. Even though we did that i think it is important to note when it comes to Child Welfare we have not done enough. I would argue wavent done anything in many respects since in many ofar theldren currently in foster care were even born. So theres much we need to do. Certainly respect and pointing out the need to listen to those of the lived experience and im, very happy to introduce as my colleague and representative gwen moore that youth and Family Engagement and Child Welfare act. Just introduce that this week. This is something that i think is part of the solution of moving forward and certainly appreciate i think a bipartisan approach on that and a bipartisan hearing such as we are having right now. Mrs. Peterson, i really appreciate you sharing your perspectives. Search and let your reflection on your faith basedas perspectie as it is. Nc and you can speak from your lived experience. We want to empower more use to give us their perspective. It is important that we at the federal level of government do not become overly prescriptive for State Government. Rather than having expectations of doing positive things and replicating that. Perhaps one state to another. I am just wondering if you could reflect a little bit on how we have foster care judgment kids in foster care. Adolescence who then age out. Given the fact i believe our country is more opportunity than any other country in the world it iss inexcusable that we have foster care youth aging out and not linking with that opportunity that we know exist across america. We are not linking up here. What do you think we can do too have better results shall we say . Thank you for your work on this policy. One of the things that i do in my work as i take former foster youth and youth have come from hard places on trips with me from a public speaker as i mentioned. I bring them to speaking engagements with me. I believe they need to see other people who have had backgrounds like them best successful. Foster care is so isolating. These kids need more opportunities. They need more exposure. The need to see other people growing up like them do what they could possibly do. They need to see what is anpossible be on their experiene and care and have relationships in the process form those relationships. Okay, thank you. I am wondering if you could perhaps add some perspective here as well. Ed what is most appropriate for the federal level to go too far as it way too often happens. And yet have the expectation states produce positive results. F young people who age out of care come in as teenagerses. We have this feeling that they come in as a babies and they spend long periods of time in care, but thats not actually true. And so we have adolescents coming into care, and many of them are not coming in for abuse and neglect. Theyre coming because of conflicts with parents, theyre coming in because parents are desperate if to find services and supports to meet that Young Persons needs. And so the best way the best way to prevent children from never aging out is to prevent themhe from ever coming into care and that is central to what title iv is trying to do. On the opposite end of the many states have that option and federal law. Unfortunately many have not ntaken up that option and even n states that have, a small percentage of young people decide to stay in care and events because foster care doesnt sound all that good so how do we create an option for young people still in foster care but treats them like settles rather than children. Is there a state that stands out to you as best practices in that state. Othis may be the best example f the wonderful people throughout all of our district that arewo doing great work that is incredibly beneficial. A significant federal funding to target the root causes of the mistreatment of children and provide Critical Services to help kids and families in need. These funds help states provide a lifeline to kids and those that have experienced or are in imminent risk of experiencing foster care problems and to help supportmm communitybased servis for struggling families from hiring and training caseworkers and improving Family Court Services this makes a huge difference in the lives of children. According to the california is, which is the answer to your question according to the legislative analyst in california, the average monthly caseload for our states Child Welfare system is overwhelming. Everything from in person investigations, maintenance support, Reunification Services and permanent placement. In my district, theres over 1200 children currently living in foster care and 800 families involved in Dependency Court cases and many counties are struggling to find bids and services for transition age youth. So i look forward to this reauthorization in a bipartisan way so we can provide the Critical Resources for our most at risk constituents. I want to thank you for your compelling and courageous testimony and the work youve been doing not only to highlight the problems that you face but the problems that many others face on a daytoday basis is to rutledge bullying and we need to do everything we can to change that. What do you think this committee can do in our reauthorization legislation that would best help not only making the facilities more transparent but ensuring that if children are at these facilities they receive the proper care and services that they need. Thank you so much. I appreciate what you just said. And i think its important for there to be oversight and regulation people need to know they are being watched and what i experience in these places was inhumane and do something that would affect me for the rest of my life and after speaking to thousands of survivors whove been through these same experiences i think its important to listen to survivors because we have the lived experience and i just want to say again im grateful to be sitting here in front of all of you who could help make a differencece in so many childres lives and i think its just continuing to do that to pass this. You mentioned the y capacity issue. I cant imagine being satisfactory and anybody else whos and certainly not in mine. What do we need to do to increase that capacity. It seems we just lost a great facility in my district and that was not enough. Lets be clear the testimony of those lived experiences doesnt move you the research is clear children do best in families, clearly. There will always be the need for children to have different forms of care. That means there will be children going into foster care. It also means it will require a shortterm intervention that may be residential. Its not a replacement or a place for each child to stay for a long time. But we need those very limited facilities to be exceptionally highquality, to be therapeutic. The purpose of that intervention is for the child to go home and succeed in a family. This is about a success for these kids. Mr. Buchanan was spot on when he said this is the future. Firstst of all, i first read about yourr story in vanity fair. I dont usually read that magazine. My wife does. She said youve got to read this story and you wont believe what happened to her. Your presence here, believe me we had a lot of briefings that we dont this get this kind of crowd and we dont get that many people that come in from the media and want to get pictures. You telling what happened to you is incredible and opens up a whole new vision for the rest of us to say she has the courage to stand up and talk about this and relate what she went to and we should look at our own lives and communities and to say why he also cant we look at that and make sure. I cant tell you how much you were able to do and how you did it and i know it was selfless but its had a great impact. Thank you so much. Thank you. I have tears in my eyes. Tell your wife think you so much as well. It is an honor and a pleasure to be able to do this for the children that have no voice and to be the hero that i needed when i was a little girl terrified in these places. Theres thousands of children in these places right now and for so many years, nobody has been believed or listened to. So i feel that may be god put me through this and gave me this special gift so one day i could use it to help others not go through what i did and turn my pain into a purpose. Thank you all for coming today and everyonene because this is o important for the world to know whats happening and the children there to know we are all here today to help make a difference in their lives. I am one of five and we were blessed with four children and ten grandchildren and there is nothing in the world more valuable to us than those kids, so thank you for your work youre advocating for. I think it is the worst thing that could happen to america. Weve been so blessed for so long and sometimes take it for granted we are always going to be that way. You cannot, and every night we pray that our kids and grandkids will have a future. Why would the story that you have coming out of the college that you have come from if people dont want to hear your story because you are talking about the force of faith in your life that actually does absolutely transformed it i think your story is incredibly and i want to thank you for being here. W i dont understand why its taken this long to get to this point glory to god for what youve done in my life and i have felt t at times that my voe has not been welcomed because of my faith and i felt at times ive been pushed out of spaces that look a lot like this because i love jesus and i want to tell people about him. James 127 calls christians to secure for the infant and the widow and urges us to not show favoritism when a poor man comes to our home so we are given the command to care and we are given the instruction to not show favoritism and it says we mustan put them in the same place that we would aid at this is what we are supposed to do so as the childd ages out like i did, communities need to step up like minded and i urge anyone listening to this communitybased organizations,s, people of faith, if there is a kid that you know in foster care no matter what theyve been in, believe in them as much as you what your own child, fill the rules they are missing out. My community isnt perfect. They didnt fill every aspect a mother infant child shed and they will never be able to make up for what i did not have. We need more communities who will open their doors and living rooms and go out of their ways for kids and care. Thank you for being here. And of my colleagues should be on this panel ive got to tell you ive been with his family and kids and its been a difference thank you so much. All of those in the 98, 99, there is no. Thank you for being here. I want to thank the panelists as well for your insight today. I want to associate my remarks with mr. Neil yet focus a little bit on Social Security first. There are 2. 7 million children who are Social Security recipients. Most of the children receiving care are not infants. They come because of a deceased parent. Here we are talking about what we need to do. How about the fact congress hasnt voted to enhance Social Security in more than 53 years . Is p there anyone on this panel who doesnt think that enhancing Social Security so it doesnt reflect what was providing in terms of benefits in 1971 to take care of the very children yourere talking about. I will start with you. Thanknk you, mr. Larson. I think it is extremely important the point that youre making andma the fact that it hs not been changed in over 50 years and its ridiculous especially with inflation and everything thats been happening its a whole different world now so these need to be addressed in and changed i 100 agree. Thank you. Mr. Dean. I recognize the hearing today. The title for b is a relatively small program. It is a critical resource because of its flexibility. Understanding how does that interact with title iv funds to social Services Block grants and other supports. Thank you. Couldnt agree withh you more. I feel like i dont understand way this works and one of the things ive admired about people in my life is when they say i dont know so im going to say i dont know. I would absolutely support and enhancement. For some of thehens reasons we mentioned before as well, the majority of children are in care and for children of incarcerated parents in particular, very informal care where they are not getting payments as foster care givers and we already know that kinship payments even for children in foster care are often under what somebody might receive free nonrelative placement. So before they get involved in the foster care system having the access to resources is critical. I know we mentioned other services. Tanner f child only grants can support caregivers of children and incarcerated parents who are not involved in the foster care system but they are incredibly hard to access. Its typically about 115 a month and it doesnt go very far. We are also talking about the majority beingre grandparents ad they are now caring for the grandchildren which can be a challenge and an additional thing to look at would be childcare both for the caregivers. Im glad you mentioned that because that was my next question for everyone. Are you familiar with Family Resource centers . The chairman will be happy to know that a native of missouri, doctor edward zigler, rest his soul, the father of headstart said we ought to wake up and recognize what we have an in abundance, schools. So he offered the Family Resource centers as a source for families and also a physical place that exists already that could be expanded upon and utilized in a further professionalized. What is your sentence . Who do you think that he was on the right track with Family Resource centers . Absolutely. We need the Resource Centers not just for children who are with caregivers, but also for families who particularly for my clients a during reentry period where they have all these different thingsif upon them but also need access to those resources. It providing the resources they need so we r can have healthy families. Theyde are funded by title iv be and they are also for the communities which gets to begin the flexibility of the program, missouri, indiana, california can design their own types of interventions in their communities. Many of them look like Family Resource centers. All of a sudden im getting theseng Text Messages saying theres a social worker who needs me to call her. Okay. I immediately assume i have a Family Member that needs bail money. I call the social worker into ae first words out of the mouth are are you going to come pick it up . Pickup what . Apparently the birth mother of the girl we adopted a six months earlier had walked into the hospital, no prenatal care, Substance Abuse and had a little boy. The boy was very small and was going through withdrawals. This is him exactly two years ago and one of the greatest things thatur has ever happenedn our lives, but before we were able to walk into that hospital with him, it turns out in Adoption Agency worker had gotten the birth mother to sign a piece of paper and remember the birth mother said they adopted my little girl, you know, this is the brother. Wouldnt that be nice if they could be together. We were told we handed to sign a piece of paper for 40,000 before we were allowed to walk out the door with the baby because the baby belonged to the adoption services. How does a middleclass family ever adopt with these types of costs . How many here have gone through the process to be a Foster Parent . My wife and i spent years and years trying to adopt and its stunning. Maybe a combination of the rates that have collapsed, but we spent years and its heartbreaking, just devastating, failed options. As you start to look at for b, we know theres flexibility, but i would encourage the policymakers. You willoi have some of the expertise something that is actually much more unified, and then here is my point of heresy. Thirty years ago there was a National Movement to fixate on family reunification. Having gone through the foster classes, having actually looked at the numbers, maybe our prayer ready is the childs welfare into the childs future. But my point is if you are trying to find a unified theory of everything from the adoption cited to the foster care side to those that have parents in incarceration, the prayer ready, the number one priority of the Society Needs to be those kids. We have schools closing all over the country because theres not enough children the dave thomas organizations do incredibly well. Im adopted, my little boy is thirdgeneration, so is my little girl. Am i off my rocker thinking two things. Unified approach so its more, but its also maybe we need to step up the prioritization of the child and its future from even some of the others and i know that is heresy. Representing the foundation for adoption when we consider what is best for children for the vast majority of children, we also need to invest in highquality adoption. The program that is a signature at the initiative of the Dave Thomas Foundation has led to 14,000, more than 14,000 achieving permanency that wouldnt have done so without. A 700 of those kids, this was their last chance of finding a home to be reunified. They were never actually given the chance a of reunification sufficient so when they were ready to be adopted there was still the opportunity to reunify them. So i thinky we dont want to ply adoption against reunification and youre right, we do think of a unified framework what is the best interest of children. How often, how common is our families experience . Youre not allowed to take the job home unless you have the cash. So, but youre talking about ispt largely private adoption rather than they had people stalking getting people to sign that piece of paper im not an expert on international adoption. Public adoption of children that are ine the foster care system are managed under very different policies and the like. Your experience, i dont have anythingma to add. Thank you for your tolerance. I yield back. Mr. Blumenauer. Thank s you, mr. Chairman. I find this hearing very meaningful. I have 190 days left in congress. Ive been spending time on issues that bring people together rather than divided them. And i was struck that that is the majority of things before. They may not make the headlines. They may not be msnbc and fox news but these are things that affect real people. They dont cost money. One of the things that youve made is investing upfront and actually saves so much. It is a piece for yourself. We spend a lot of time around. You will see us today in the flooring you will see it later in the week, beating each other up on the things to get our moment headlined. Of these things arent going to get enacted into law. They are not going to make a difference to the american people. Its a distraction. Its ar slideshow. What youre talking about here is not a distraction. Its not a slideshow, and it is presented in a compelling way that even a member of congress ought to be able to understand youredom of what saying. I am hopeful in the next 190 days. We are looking in a sense its a legacy for all of us. And what you presented today is part of what can be a legacy for any member of congress regardlessss of party, regardles of where they live, regardless of what committee they are on. I would love to think what would happen if we spent the month of july just talking about the things that we actually agree on, talking about things that are common sense and that tug at the heartstrings as you presented. If we spend the meetings instead of maneuvering and thinkingts about scoring points in the president ial election system its beyond the kenneth most people. These are things that will mobilize support for the political process. Onthey will bring people togeth. It wont cost money. It will save massive amounts of money. I work with an Organization Called of friends of children the fulltime mentor that stays with them until they graduate from High School Starting at age four. I have another friend that isin working on the focus of the first thousand days of life on those first thousand days before people are damaged and we are playing catchup. These are the things i hope that you will inspired us to think about and each in our own way focus on things that bring people together that dont cost money that are not part of a game that doesnt get anybody anywhere and change any lives it may not have political saying is so much occupies. But these are real people into this as progress and i think in the long run people who focus on that actually it might even be olbetter politics. I deeply appreciate your coming together and focusing this in a way that i think anybody would appreciate that we all had an opportunity in our own way to be able to work in advancing things. You have challenged us to think about. We know what to do, we know it will not cost anything. It will save money. And it will bring people together rather than divided them. I think that ought to be our mission and i hope that you inspire us to do that. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chair. Let me thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony and your compelling examples here today. I want to particularly thank you for sharing your life journey. You are an example of success and perseverance and we appreciate your passion and courage. We are having the hearing today which of course is an important Child Welfare program that provides flexibility i take seriously our responsibility to ensure we have a strong safety net n for nearly 370,000 childrn in foster care whove experienced the trauma and hardships of abuse and neglect. Theyve taken a deep dive into the current challenges facing Child Welfare. In continuing the decades long tradition of doing so in a bipartisan basis. Aslast week i was proud to leado the introduction of the act with my fellow Ranking Member a bill aimed at finding ways to better nurture the relationship between foster children and their incarcerated parents. Our subcommittee has helped to Child Welfare hearings this particular congress. September of last year we are at about witnesses ways to modernize title 40 and in january the Committee Held a hearing on improving support for the 19,000 youths aging out of foster care each year. Witnesses at the hearings included state officials, leaders from communitybased organizations, and former foster youth who shared recommendations on ways to improve the system moving forward. In this Committee Hearing today signals important progress in our ability to Work Together to reauthorize title 40 of this congress. One of the policies that i focused on on the subcommittee iste embracing the stories of those that have experienced transformational change from the power of employment and brought to their lives byoy a job. The focus has been not just about the job but about the dignity of work. I appreciate your perspective on how we can encourage and promote for all the vulnerable populations including foster youth. As you know, only about 55 of the foster youth are in fulltime employment past the age of 18. In our opinion, why, i guess, strike that, why in your opinion is the percentage is so low and how can we improve the barriers to the employment for foster youth . Thank you for your kind words. I think this percentage is so low for two reasons. First is the foster youth usually do not receive as many opportunities as their peers that are not foster children. That is because foster youth tend to be stigmatized as troubling children that makes it harder for them to gain employment as young people or because foster youth usually move from home to home unexpectedly and this causes them to miss out on opportunities like tryouts or makes them have two leave jobs unexpectedly that makes them not higher level when they go to get another job. I briefly mentioned in my statement one of the young man my husband and i were mentoring is a part of this nonprofit was a former foster youth handle was living off of the free housing and getting a weekly stipend from funds and those offering him these resources told him he would continue to receive the resources as long as he worked 20 hours a week and he wasnt doing any Higher Education outside of, no Higher Education, just work. So programs like this teach young people parttime work is sustainable and they can live off of government resources. The young man did get removed from the program because he wasnt meetings the requirements of working 20 hours a week, but a couple of months later, he gained fulltime employment and is now paying for his own housing. His Mental Health is doing much better because he cant sleep all day because he is s doing to work and my husband and i see this pattern in younger people again and again and again. The point is not that we shouldnt help, but that there is a point when helping hurts and its our responsibility as the helper to figure out where that point is. When the resources are excessive, they can become enabling to young adults in communities because communities aree giving permission to not invest their time and energy and love into these youth. Sofi we need to find the fine le of giving them what they need to survive and inmate in an empowering way rather than man enabling way. That is a great example of what we are focused on on the importance of employment and the dignity of work and we are grateful to have you here today. Thank you and i yield back. I now recognize. Thank you mr. Chairman. First of all, youve all been first class witnesses and i think you for your courage. It takes courage to say what youve said. You will hear a lot of stuff around here, which passes for courage. To me, courage means you not only say it, but you do it. That is a tough transition, isnt it, at times . Our job was to protect the least of these among us. Our seniors and our children. When you saw what happened during the pandemic and those nursing homes, we know half the story. We never got it. In new jersey, the advocates for the children of new jersey has advocated records and families since 177 years. This is not a partisan issue. This is a humanitarian cause for all of us. If we agree with that, we are halfway home. Each of our witnesses can offer testimony on children to navigate the foster care issue and then thrive. Of course, we must always be concerned about fraud and guard against wall street vultures snatching public funds to line their pockets and do what we are talking about today. Private equity is not hot. This 23 billiondollar industry sees children asn dollar signs. The profit is more important than their lives. Very well stated just unpack briefly for us why the forprofit industry is so dangerous here and what we are talking about. Its so dangerous because they are caring more about profits than the safety of children and that means that they are trying to spend as little money as possible and the type of employees that they are hiring are people that are not being checked b through and should be nowhere near children and just the end higher situation. Theres no education in these places. The food quality, the living conditions. Others mold and blood on the walls. Its horrifying. What these places are like. Its worse than some dog kennels that are out there. Its terrifying. All these private Equity Companies are seeing the businesses, such a profitable industry so they are caring more about the bottom line they in childrens lives. So, what youre saying is theres a vacuum here of service. We are trying to fill that vacuum yet others are vacuuming up the money when they say that would be helpful. This is dangerous to me. Extremely. Can you expand on how we would strengthentr the pipeline for qualified workforce. Another big problem with Senior Housing and nursing homes, qualified workers, cant get them. Whos going to protect their children . As i said earlier i do think it is such a critical issue because any reform you want to do is dependent on having a qualified workforce. I will say i think the problem is less recruitment at the end retention problem. The workers take two years to learn their jobs from their amounts. And of many of them equate within those first two years. They quit for many reasons. One, and we will get into this, is the Administrative Burden, the paperwork that they are asked to fill out. When they were asked to learn to take care of families and engage and instead they are working on paperwork, there are lots of opportunities to get workers passed to the period where they are new and learning their jobs one is the Loan Forgiveness Program that exists for social workers. You have to be in your job for ten years. Very few actually last that long. If we change the duration of time that that was available, we would get people sticking it out past year and a half, two years to the poihat they now know how to do their jobs and can become effective supervisors and once they are at that point they are more likely to make that job a career. Mr. Chairman, it is the fact of the recommendation that we put under the review. I want to talk to the committee about that. I appreciate the hearing and i think it is very productive and we will get to more as we go. Doctor windstream, you are now recognized. This is something that is but a passionate to me and i think it is vital we learn from the programs that have found some success. But what is success . You mentioned its not paperwork. Its not getting paperwork done. And often we vote for bills that sound good and they have a nice sounding title, but they dont really bring the success that we should be looking out and what we are talking about today. We talk about succeeding in a family. And i want to add to that. Succeeding in a family t even if you a never had one growing up thats where success comes in in my opinion theres a difference between public oversight. What ive been involved in when you are a donor to that nonprofit you take a role in oversight because you care and theres volunteer oversight and those are the right motives for what we are trying to do. We get to know the children. We look for evidencebased solutions and again, with a different definition of success rather than just being paperwork and the idea moving from one to another is so heartwrenching. Thereve been a lot of things. Ive been big brother, i have looked for opportunities in people that wouldnt normally have them and what we are talking about is an opportunity for loving, caring, developing and a stable environment especially for those that really get that opportunity. My wife and i have a 10yearold son and 6yearold adopted daughter. The most beautiful things weve been able to do. Ii want to talk about the agenc, the woman that runs it, shes an attorney and adoptedne mother of two and she decided to become ac adoptive professional. I have a letter from her that i would like to submit for the record today. Think about voluntary surrenders for the biological parents making the best connection. Every situation, we place the best interest of the child at the centerwe of our decisions. And we see the role as a lifelong commitment to the children we placed and the adoptive families that he served. Theres no reaching out. And we have a relationship with the birth mother. What child doesnt want more people loving them . So theres a lot of different situations. We have to have flexibility. You have to gear it towards the child and what is going to work best for everyone involved. Im involved in something. In cincinnati i have for 30 years or so and at this is a problem that is a combination of what we talk about. You still have the family involved. Its basically called a scholarship and as early as fourth grade, because the home situation is not good, they are matured, where they are stable, where they are developed and they go to good schools. And this is all private. We see them through high school, college and they come back. Its part of the family, and their families are involved. Others the thanksgiving party, the christmas party. They go home on the weekends and we turn this into a scholarship. These kids are proud. Theres opportunities all over the place and yes it is faithbased but we dont proselytize and make someone join your religion or anything like that but its those christian values, judeochristian values that are in place that make a difference. I see you nodding. Im so proud you are from ohio. Thanks for being my neighbor. But i just want to say what are some of the things you would recommend to the state so they have flexibility with the dollars they getit to enhance successful programs and may be specifically through the title . I b love to see organizations do more job shadowing. Bring them along. Like i said earlier, foster youth need more opportunities and needed to be shown what they are capable of. I would love to see more job shadowing. And something that my church did is land and invested in me before i aged out of the system. So i think we talk about the foster care system and how to support the youth a lot once they aged out and if it is actually a very reactive solution. These children deserve us to be proactive for them and so we need to be serving them and reaching them before they age out of the system. One of the things my church did is actually covered for me. They paid for me to go through this financial budgeting program. They prepared misa by the time i was aged out, i had money saved up and by the time i aged out, i knew what a budget was and what investment was and i knew how to manage my life as an adult because of the work that was ordone before i was an adult. I would like to finish with a quote i heard from the caregiver 100 years ago and there are no grandchildren only bad environment, training, examples and thinking. And i will yield back. Wada this hearing and all the witnesses for sharing your experiences as well as your expertise. Let me thank you for sharing your experiences and raising the issues in Residential Care and i wouldd certainly like to work with you to try to help reduce and alleviate them and i also want to thank you. But we thank you for being here for the amazing work that you do for childrenn in illinois. You and i have both experienced how it feels to bring children to visit their incarcerated parents. And its amazing to watch those families be reunited. As a matter of fact, i have a coalition of Community Agencies just returned on saturday from visiting the Sheridan Facility is a part of fatherhood weekend fatherhood days. It was off the chart. Bute as you know weve introducd legislation to authorize new demonstration projects to identify and implement best practices to develop and maintain meaningful relationships of their incarcerated parents. Can you tell us more about why connecting with other parents who are incarcerated is especially important for foster youth . Thank you for that question, congressman. Thank you in particular for your continued support of families impacted by parental incarceration for many years. I was as i said a teacher in your district for eight years and i know the amazing work that youve donema for families. As we talked about before, parental incarceration is an Adverse Childhood Experience as is being in foster care. So, for any child having that subrogation fromom a parent cane traumatic and can have very long lasting impacts. Particularly for children who are notn with the biological Family Member. And that is where foster care and incarceration can intersect. That when a parent is incarcerated a typically children are with Family Members, but its far less likely when the child then is in foster care. So its important for children in foster care to have someone connected to them that they feel like they can rely on. Under even need of more of those connections. There is often an element of self blame that goes along with children who are experiencing either parental incarceration or who are in foster care. They often feel like maybe this is partly their fault in particular for children of incarcerated mothers who are involved in the foster care system because we know foster care cases, that indications of parents about 30 of the time also indicate a parent who is experiencing abuse and a lot of times its because the parent themselves are the victim of Domestic Violence into the children are then taken away and at the children can blame themselves for what happened. So, leading children to these experiences and giving them the reassurances that their parents are okay. They might have been harmed but now they are okay or their parent doesnt blame them, that they are not abandoned and that hethey are still loved is important and it can predict success longterm not just for the children but for the parents as well. Let me ask you given your knowledge of these programs in history of engagement, should this Grant Program be developed and what kind of activities would you like to see take place . I can give a long list of the activities from small to big. We just did a fathers day program recently where facepainting was the number one thing that kids wanted to do. It was very exciting. But what i really want to see some of the activities that we already do, but with increased frequency and span. What we do right now, if we are just looking at this one program, we do it monthly when we can. But even then, there is a wait list. And that is just coming from one region of one state and going to be stated visibly, not even looking at the federal facility. We need to expand these programs to everywhere and make them available especially as we look at the benefits of having communitybased smaller facilities closer to the communities we need to be able to provide those opportunities for everyone. I would like to see opportunities for older children. Weve been talking about the youth aging out of care. Children dont stop being children when they hit 18 and a lot of the programs that exist right now are there for a limited age range. Some of the summer camps, for exame, for children in foster care or children of incarcerated parents might be eight to 12yearsold. We need to expand that. Our program doesnt have an age limit we have 27yearold that go to see their parents sometimes and they will cry more than a small child because they still need their parent. I would like to see those type of activities and also supportive activities like parenting classes, therapy and groups for children and parents to experience things together and talk through their feelings and what they are experiencing. I yield back. Thank you and i now recognize mr. Harrington for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman and to the witnesses for your passion and commitment to being a voice from americas most vulnerable, probably true of forgotten people in this country. Thanks for giving them a voice and thanks for remembering them and helping us to remember. We need to put our best foot forwardfo to improve the system. The government cant do everything, but what we do ought to be effective, and people ought to be accountable and we ought to have the highest standards. Thats what im hearing from each of you. Thank you and god bless you. It may be no more than all of you but you are allstars allstars everyone of you. Now, ms. Harrington, you talked about the several pieces of legislation youve worked on throughout the countries in various states and you mentioned you had a some folks checking on you that saved you from a furtherabuse in the system and d can you imagine what it would be like h if you didnt have parens and family checking on you, so lets talk about how we check on these Vulnerable People in the system and the state level and then i will get to the role of the federal government, what is your experience in terms of the best practices around checking oversight and accountability, just give me a few ideas that he could consider as best practices throughout the many states in this great country. Welcoming all of my outside contact was completely controlled and they would always have a staff member sitting right next to me. So if i said even one negative thing about the facility, they immediately would hang up the phone and then i would be punished either physically beaten or thrown into solitary confinement, then they would take away my phone privileges and not let me speak to my parents. So they had no idea what was happening because they were continually being lied and manipulated by the staff that were trained to do that. There were other children in there that were foster children and they had nobody to call, nobody to talk to, so all of the kids in these places, they are not able to speak to their families without someone sitting right next to them, so its difficult to be able to tell anyone what is happening in the outside world. Then a lot of the kids are not believed because the places tell the parents they are going to be lying, they are manipulating, they want to go home. So i think its important that children are able to speak to their families without someone sitting directly next to them where they can have unmonitored phone calls with her family, and if they dont haveon a Family Member, they should have someone in the outside world that they could talk to, because otherwise these children are in there and theyey have no voice, no one believes them, and its extremely isolating and is extremely traumatic. Thats why i want to continue for the t stop child act because they need the right to talk to someone to tell them what is happening. Thank you. And thank you for sharing your story today. Ms. Peterson, very encouraged and inspired by your boldness, your unabashed pride and joy, the love of your life which is jesus our savior and i love when i hear somebody hearing other heavenly father intervened, not the system, not a program, but the god ofam all creation who knows your name and touched your heart and changed your life. By the way, that is the story of every Christian Center saved by grace, amen. Okay, i will ive got that baptist voice. You do. I let him out every now and then at these hearings, but you brought him out today. This is maybe a little bit of a tangent and i want you to speak to this because you mentioned the verse in james and when i think about that verse, religion or religion that is pure and undefiled is those that care for the orphan and widow, i always took that is the mission of the church and i find, or i observed that over time the church ceded to the state that instead of the tide that goes to the church and the church that has that connectivity that you mentioned, that relationship meeting those deeper needs, that is how it used to be and i feel like the church has moved away from that and now we pay taxes to the state and the state is doing all this work and im not sure that they can ever do it quite like the church use to do it. Is that a philosophy that you share or you could opine on briefly and then i will yield. My time is expired but if you would let her just answer that question. I think when i look back on my experience, i know that my experience in my community and at my church was unique. They lived out what they preached. They lived out what christians l edare meant to live out. And seeing all the adopted children, i remember we didnt call, we dont call orphan sunday, we call it the long sunday because that is what it should be. It is specifically for kids in foster care because we cared about them. My church did the training around trauma they wanted to be able to care for them and so i know that this experience is very unique but i hope what people here today is more churches need to pick up the mantle and carry this out. Is would love to also echo paris for when she was talking about the visits, i think its a really important point because us as Foster Parents, when our caseworkers come to visit our team daughters, they dont ask to talk t to her by herself. When i was in foster care, there was so little accountability. I saw abuse in foster care, i was abused in foster care, and no one asked me can i talk to you by your self. They asked the questions to the Foster Parents, and its easy to say i have to tell you, my classmate and a former colleague of ours, karen pass, took it as her cause celebre. She started the congressional congressionalfoster care caucusm a member. C and every year for the last seven years it was saturday where we have a foster youth shadow us. I have learned so much might foster youth who have shattered me for that day. Its a day log on the senate site and the house side for those members who are not signed up to have a foster youth to shadow. I would recommend the program and i would recommend thehe caucus. I know article 4b is not perfect. We t know it is up for reauthorization. So i wanted to ask ms. Peterson as well as ms. Hilton, whats one big reform would you like to see . That is my question. If you had to sum it up to one thing you would like to reform in section 4b. You also talked about for e. Oh just a section four. I would like to see more at sight of what ive spoken about i like to see more services in terms of Mental Health. When i was in the foster care system as a child one of things i found really difficult was to attach a know it is considered to be attachment theory. And as a Foster Parent what i have learned what is taboo to say is when you are eight Foster Parent does not happen instantaneously. At it. E to work its for the child and parent. What happens is that children receive a big gap in connectedness. The first thousand days like a detachment of those first thousand days is absolutely crucial, critical to the development of children no matter what age they are. I would love to see more education on attachment theory. How do we do well . How do we continue to work at it when it does not come naturally . How do we reverse the trauma that comes the disconnectedness . Thanks if you have the magic wand could do one reform per title for woe be . My wish would be children were not be put into facilities in the firstot place. It should be about Community Based care. Children should not be put inen places and mark traumatize thatt when they came out. Thats crucial having family based care and not have them even get into the system in the first place. Thank you. I know you know about the Government Programs for incarcerated persons with children the foster care system. Can you talk aboutn something publicprivate partnerships you know about the also help . Yes, thank you congressman. There are some programs but there are few and far between brothers art that a person the benefit of publicprivate partnerships. Certainly at the Justice Justice institute we have a grant that is funded for that grant allows to provide client care coordination from living in jail or prison with Substance Abuse disorders the program is led by a formerly incarcerated woman. This would not be possible without the Public Private Partnership Allows us to move quickly in response to needs. Also make use of Cook County Health expertise and resources are. That is possible we are speaking about these kind of partnerships as well. Could not have foster people participate we could not find private insurance that allows foster children who take part. If we could leverage the Public Resources we could use that insurance that is available. We then foster children would be able to participate. The staffing shortages that are occurring in the department of corrections. An department of children and hifamily Services Staff shortag. Also the turnover that was mentioned before. We could help to have these programs in those nonprofits. His expertise needed for things like Child Welfare in the last thing is these problems often dont exist or exist in very limited waste because we do not have the funding. We do not have assurances going to continue but one of the most damaging things to children with have one visit and they dont know when the next is going to be. We scraped together enough money to together there one time and not come back. Weve seen it was Something Different programs those are some powers that had happened with this. Think it mr. Chair for allowing us to exceed our time thank you. I know recognize doctore ferguson. I went to kill thank yous to each of you for coming today. Sometimes witnesses might wonder where their presence here it matters what was in this hearing room are coming to congressional offices, you being able to tell a story to us matters. So thank you for doing that. Your all stories and ms. Peterson and hilton in thes. Way you tell them probably belies a lot of pain and hurt that preceded you being here today. Thank you from the courage to do it and thank you for being so candid with us. Ms. Peterson ill start with your buddy talked a lot today about your testimony and response to questions about this cliff so many people hit women turned 18. Theres an expectation of work and productivity and a leading life. Youve spoken eloquently about how important it is i was surgically interested in the peace with your own experience of understanding budget. In understanding how to move forward for thats important we look at trying to break the cycles of poverty. As teach that not only to our foster children to the Foster Parents that are there as well. All too often many of our foster families suffer from lack of financial knowledge and resources as well. I would be happy if you could comment not only on the need to Financial Literacy with foster youth but the family taking care of them. Christ first on to say thank you for acknowledging that for telling our stories is hard. I also want to save being able to do this is so hearing. The worst parts of your life and all of your pain might be able to be his for some kind of good. Its a very healing experience so thank you. In terms of Foster Parent meeting Financial Literacy ive not seen that or experience, something that is needed. 30 of Foster Parents close in the first year but is so hard to retain Foster Parents and that is because of all of the things that are required of us. I love being a Foster Parent but part of the most frustrating thing ive ever done. It has completely changed my perspective of my Foster Parents. I used to be a lot harder on them then i realize they did quite well with what they had considering everything. All of the red tape, all of the requirements they had to meet you. Know the for reliability and accountability and they are very much needed. What do we need for use as the aged out of care . We need to meet them again before they are aging out and we need more Foster Parents my husband and i have to say no to a foster placement every week and it is devastating. Thank you. We cannot do it all the. If we could ive got to move on to another question. Ms. Hilton, it is something that concerns me greatly is the Mental Health of our use in general. Its also very challenging in the foster care program. Seems to be a major problem with overprescribing psychotropic drugs and saying here is a handful of pills can you share with the committee your experience with that . P that is our problem in our system today and what you think you should do to correctod thatr what we should do to correct that . It is a huge problem. Before i went to Provo Canyon School the only medication i had ever taken was a tylenol or advil for a headache. I had never been on any medications they prescribe whicd which were not even prescribed by doctor. Every morning, every lunch, every afternoon they give us a like cup full of pills. I have no idea what they were. All i know i would feel dizzy, my memory would be gone. It wasik almost like they were trying to make everyone like zombies. It was very concerning. They are definitely abusing that ngpower where they are giving children medication they do not need. I think that is something that really needs to be looked into. One answered mr. Chair if you can indulge me for justir a few seconds. Move it built that addresses this on Youth Support and tries to address some of the standards pretty like to commend my colleague from california for taking this up and be supportive of her bill. Thank you for being here thank you for telling the stories complete do better to what we do appear i yield back at the. Pursuant to Committee Practice we will move to two one questioning. As others have mentioned thank the witnesses to share your stories in your experiences with the Child Welfare program. Again also in others is not said. Work on legislation to help more kids in the Child Welfare system. Change is talking about they will not just impact those directly involved with child protective services. Also any child, family or individual who is in danger of entering the Child Welfare system. Per reform the program to engage with families of four children need to be removed from the homes. We all know that leads to much of Better Outcomes all around. Certainly every child deserves a safe and loving home. Here on this committee we have an opportunity to advance legislation that can help make this ael reality for more children. Ms. Peterson i want to talk briefly about a bill introduced. Play an essential role they do so many times without access toe resources that they wish they had. The bill i have introduced that hopefully gets included in the package we do hear the empowering kinship youth act clarifies kinship and caregivers are eligible for services under title iv b. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that . I know you have access to services and support on baby support you did not receive. Just talk about the importance of kinship care and being able to go for coverage of the. The bill sounds like a very important one. Thank youea for working on that our families have received resources or assistance in the government for the kinship care we provide to my sibling started living with us we tried to reach out to Human Services to officially become kinship caregivers get access to those resources. We were not considered a priority because they knew my sibling was already living with us. We never received a response, a court date, not a paper to sign. Our other option be to hire a lawyer, serve papers to get their attention as i wasnt willing to give Human Services any more of my time i gave them enough of that as a youth. My husband and i were in her mid 20s we took in my siblings. We were still establishing our lives is not easily especially in the beginning but we knew it would make it work like many kinship care providers do no matter what. My siblings didnt graduate high school this year will be headed to college in the fall. The greatest injustice us not receiving those services from the county and being ignored is it was to my sibling because those she has livedho with us fr years now at the county would have documented her in our care the way they should have sheet would be receiving Financial Assistance for college. But because we were ignored my sibling does not qualify for the financial help to should be receiving for college. We did not realize that would be a consequence she would face when we did not put up a fight. Thank you pretty want to go to one additional question. I have heard and went to your thoughts on this. Certainly we wants, accountabily for Child Welfare agencies and our communities and states. I have also heard the paperwork, the federal reporting requirements are burdensome. They are tedious. I have introduced another bill which would call for an evaluation of the requirements and reporting for the title for the dollars with a goal of reducing the burden by at least 15 . First, do you agree that its an issue . And if we were w successful in reducing paperwork by that amount, how could they use that time to better support the individuals in our community . The Administrative Burden you talk about is a thing we heard a lot of during our landscape assessment. That burden only affects workers ability to spend time with family that affects their morale. In the likelihood of turningir over. The Administrative Burden as it was largely unrelated to accountability. So much of what we collect our process measures the for like checking boxes rather than Truly Holding agencies accountable for outcomes. It certainly seems like there is anpp opportunity to reduce Administrative Burden and focus on accountability and more. Recognizing our data systems right now do not do a good job of always tracking the outcomes that we experience. Thank you for that answer but hope we can take this opportunity to streamline that and ensure the accountability still exists but we can eliminate some of those requirements. Thank you, thank you, mr. Chairman. Youre going to help so many thousands of youth out otherwise be forgotten. The conditions you faced in those facilities. Title iv beat should be reauthorized was a debate in this committee whether the funding should just remain the same and has string flat since 2006. We used to scrape by. What he think about finding a title iv b should increase or should make a difference in preventing childrens and families from coming into contact with charlie for system . Thank you so much. I do believe this should be increase Community Based and resources are vitally needed. Which is why we should support title iv b reauthorization but we know prevention support helps families before they even come in contact with the Child Welfare system. It will keep children out of facilities so yes. I wanted to have it make comments with an intel wall for. This requires native American Children to be replaced with extended families and tribes so they do not lose their cultural identity. That was passed in 1973 per 1994 added a title iv b plan requiring states to develop Implementation Plan in consultation with the tribes. Thirty years later nativeit children continue to be disproportionately represented in the foster care system with higher rates of entry longer length of stay in california and 4. 5 times more likely to enter care than their counterparts despite being a smaller portion of the population that is because despite of the requirement federal oversight of states compliance with this requirement is unclear not always exercise that his wife introduced a bipartisan bill strengthening tribal families act wrong with representative re bacon to direct hhs to assess how agencies are implementing better protections for tribal children is laid out in title iv b. Can you talk about how this would help states and outcomes are tribal children and families . I cannot claim to be a tribal expert. I will say over the past year end a half we have looked at legislation in all 50 states and what was introduce it striking to see how many have introduced legislation protecting and strengthening the indian Child Welfare act bills on both republican and democratic dockets. There is no doubt if you talk to tribes they will talk about the need to strengthen her in the field looks at it as a best practice not just for indian children but for all children. I do certainly something needed. Pugs like to go back to title iv b. There are improvements we could be made must reauthorization. Im sponsoring with congressperson carol miller. He was forbidden to collect online portals to connect with local resource in the Court Improvement program act i am collating with congressperson more up to provide Additional Resources to provide Court Proceedings to take place virtually. There are also problems with workers and burnout of burnout burnoutproblem with workers whio could be directed title iv b. Could you address these issues question one may tackle Court Improvement verse i see Court Improvement program as one of the real successes of the title iv b program and provides both the flexibility that states need it provides the opportunity for congress to have setasides for key issues that have been under invested. If you take a look at the success of the Court Improvement program impacting the quality of hearings every day in the United States. The court certainly learned her in the covid crisis about hearings. If we use those remote hearings they are done in a quality way and other Court Personnel to make sure children and parents rights to protect it. Thank you, yelled back. Text mr. Estes is recognized. To help youth and their opportunity that they have. Thank you for all t of your work of the institutional child abuse act. It is great for us in this hearing to be able to talk about the committees continuing effort to build a society in a culture that values life. These hearings and through legislation were uncovering ways to better support children, parents, and families but it would start assuring a story about a s family and my fourth Congressional District in kansas for my constituent is a loving grandfather who happens to be blind. When he lost custody of his children he stepped into care for his grandchildren. The two and half million children across the country were cared for by Family Members and grandparents which is a great advantage placing children and kinship care produces trauma produce ahi higher chance of reunification with parents bruce bruce sought custody of this grandchildren he encountered significant difficulties. One due to his age but also some blindness even though he was well equipped to lovingly care for his grandchildren. These hurdles to kinship care process added to the uncertainty of bruces grandchildren were already dealing with. Thankfully to gain custody of his children. Im glad bruce and his family reach this positive outcome. But i know about other grandparents or aunts and uncles and siblings in similarar situation where things have turned out differently. Those are just know to advocate for themselves and young vulnerable Family Members to get them and care for their family bruces story underscores the burden to kinship care we should examine and correct. That is why were here to there panel of witnesses to discuss how we can improve the kinship care process. When a childless and longer able to be in the care of his or her parents every effort should be keep the child within the family assuming those relatives are well disposed to care for their children. Ms. Peterson under the direct expense with foster care children have covered a lot of things today. Wasth wilson with the kinship ce process could you describe the challenges you face in going to the kinship care process . I stated before just being not having access to recent not being made a priority because they knew my sister it was safe definitely has been an uphill battle to advocate for our family but more importantly to advocate for her i do think the kinship families are often kinship providers are looked at his lower priority than Foster Parents and adoptive parents and that can be really challenging. Thank you for sharing your personal story with us today in all of the details its an issue my home state of kansas we run into a lot over the last several years in terms of how do we make sure we do the best job that we can for the children in our care . Different barriers come from a good place. Want to make sure we protect and ensure the wellbeing of children. Too often they end up causing more problems and lead to adversese outcomes. Without putting in place unnecessary or barriers for things like kinship care when this is the best option for the children . It is the best option for i do think the Research Clearly shows that children are safer in kinship care and their wellbeing is better in kinship care. The question it is the licensing process. Partially hhs astute regulations out they give states the of flexibility in designing can specific lifesaving standards hopefully states will take advantage ofng that. When there is a concern i can cannot care for a child, what can be put into the home to make it . Rather than say it is not acceptable. Work with the kinship caregiver. They do on the right equipment then provide that rather than cancel them out as an option. Thank you. Thank you for all of the panelists. Mrs. Mansfield june add to that question because he mightve added to that question or just want to add one of the challenges i often see is for the families we work with them for our own staff which is that womens Justice Institute of mainly formerly incarcerated. Criminal records can be a huge issue. Someone a grandparent mightve had a conviction 20 or 30 years ago. Now they are not allowed to be a kinship placement for the grandchildren. Something completely unrelated to the children is to put barriers in the wayay than the kinship caregivers do not seek to get as assistance because they are scared the children will be removed from them. These are necessary barriers looking at somebody to record and said their ability to care for a child. Think you will foror what youve covered. Give covered a wide variety of issues that deal that would best care for children . With that i yield back. Thank you. Ms. Miller . Thank you chairman smith. I want to thank all four of you we stay at home. Your stories, your information and your feedback is so important to us. Im not sure we are solving this, its cracking home such a huge, huge issue. I am a wife, a mother, and a grandmother which is really cool. My boys were and lots and lots of sports. I never knew how many feet would be underneath my table at dinner. Many, many nights they were extra feet. Ri had a couple rules one no hs on your head, you had to wear a shirt, you had to say grace. Ive always had an empathy for children who may have just been hungry. But the social welfare we have for our kids. The system is so important to me. I am encouraged that our committee is willing to take the necessary steps to discuss what needs to happen. Many children entering the Child Welfare system have an urgent material need that needs to be addressed without direct government intervention. And West Virginia, where i am from, 53 of our foster children are cared for by relatives, often older grandparents like me who are retired. They struggle to afford unexpected expenses. Things like car seats, formula, things that have not been in their venue for a while. Given the rural nature of my state theyve been very challenging but ii introduced hr 476 the helping hands family act with representative chu as she mentioned earlier to be able to the Electronic Services and tools that connect families to the essential services that support them online. Do you believe providing more flexibility in how title for b services are delivered could better serve the families particularly in rural areas like West Virginia . Or is no doubt in my mind the type of coordination and navigation youre talking about is essential. Essential for the birth parents. Essential for the kinship caregivers. Myan understanding or might read the title for being would say it is already something that is allowable. A lot with hhs could be firste stop. Thank you for that pretty think flexibility within title iv be its usually important. The providing flexibility is in the core improvement system for the Improvement Program. The core Improvement Program helps courts conduct hearings on child abuse and neglect in a timely manner provide training for trauma informed care. This will ensure children who enter the support of the support they so desperately need. Along with the representatives of blake i interest the Court Improvement Program Enhancement act allowed funds to be used toward improving technology about state courts to use the cip funds to improve a parent, family, Youth Engagement and their welfare proceedings. Once again can you speak to the infant importance how more remote hearings courts absolute many courts experimented is a vital component is not a Silver Bullet and make sure everyone involved is to change using technology or treating families fairly as an optionn absolute. First and foremost thank you for using your platform such troubling experiences as so many youth are facing an hour foster in residential treatment homes. Behalf of troubled youth. We hear a lot about the increase in Mental Health disorders in youthh including disorders like adhd, depression, anxiety, suicide and my home state of West Virginia we also struck with high rates of substance disorder, it children have been fighting the Opioid Epidemic for years and years and years. Far too many Young Children are struck with Mental Health and unable to get the support they need. Parents are often at a loss for how to help their children do not know how toef access it. How do we improve the support we give to teens and youth to help them cope and have a healthy transition into adulthood . Especially when your talk about foster youth who have had so much trauma. Thank you so much. We should prioritize the lived experience voices to ensure we truly oe understand what could p them and help them figure out how to do that i believe youth need access to Mental Health in their communities mentor ship and community. Have a Mental Health crisis for our kids it scares me for my own children. Im confident we can bolster support for children and their parents and the community it will prevent trauma trucks thank you so much for your testimonies i yield back. Thank you, ms. Moore . You all look a lot different down here than you did up there. Thank you so very, very much. Let me start out by just thanking all of the people who are Foster Parents including mr. All the people who make sacrifices to prevent and neglect of our children. That being said i am the chair of the congressional caucus on foster youth i am so happy to learn join and participate and pointing at the education for foster youth. Its a real epiphany for me and my first foster youth they did turn this on to the notion to dig into Mental Health. We need navigators as people age out. While there are foster kids they become teachers and professors. That being said ive appreciated all of you for your testimony today. Talked a lot about prevention, about focusing on family unifications. Avoiding congregate care. The thing that concerns the most is as i look im figuring out how much we spend on this and something from the states and the federal government over 40 billion on foster care and foster programs and that still turns out to not be enough in certain categories. One of the things i am observing and maybe you can help me walk through it, just as an example of the federal Child Welfare funding i am looking at 11 billion at the Congressional Research serviceng prepared this memo and thus of the state matches the federal funding. Almost 5 billion spent on foster care. Another almost 5 billion on adoption and guardian assistance. So we Start Talking about Prevention Services we are talking 182 million to help them walk through and transition we are talking 187. 000000. My question to the chu review if we are aspirational to prevent congregate care to prevent kids from getting in foster care in the first place, how do we dismantle the huge amounts of money thats being spent to have this system that involves taking kids away from parents. Archie mentioned money after the fact and not enough before. The foundation and dollars allows the state to move from status quo to best practice. And over time the state takes up the responsibility themselves without the private dollars. There needs to be t away for states to have the flexibility to turn their system around. If so much funding is based on the foster care and adoption side and very little on prevention where are the resources for them to make that shift . I will note the Bipartisan Policy Center focused on financing and accountability to tackle problems exactly like this. Yes i would echo that. I i would also just to say it we spent the same amount that we spent and stipends and support to invest in families before iinvolvement. We would prevent so much there is a judgment given we cannot Fund Families to keep them together. And amen belongs right there for this assuming say things to ms. Peterson and ms. Hilton. I admit you before. For people who are not poor we are talking basically today about poor, poor children and you are not poor. When there is a fracture or a break in the family, predators are easy to get in when there is a breakdown. They have the authority. And i amhi so sorry this is happened to you. I emphasis empathize with you. I am just delighted you are using your voice. You were in 12 foster homes. It is a miracle a sociological miracle you are. I just dont think you spend on good luck for someone happen to come by and help you, thank god they were. Excuse me for using your name, we just have to hope someones going to find you and take care of you. Our kids deserve better than help. I almost made it to Ranking Member today. That being said at yield back too. You spoke the length and a Ranking Members of think it is more. Correct thank you at mr. Chairman and thank each of the witnesses for appearing today. Ms. Hilton, if i could to you, could you talk more about your bill to stop institutional child abuse act . Maybe specifically why you think will make meaningful reforms to congregate care . Act is about transparency. People need to know tapping behind closed doors. You believe if it passes, if the bill passes it will achieve that means to an end . The first steps to it. It is so important for people tt now to be held accountable for what they are doing ntb transparency. This is our future. There needs to be checks and balances on what is happening to the most Vulnerable People in the world. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story today. Miss peterson thank you also for sharing your story. If i could with you, we know in sthe past few years the rate of congregate care haste declined. Some of this is due to the family first act. Now, despite declines or is a National Shortage of foster homes. Hundred bounce at you . A steady decline in the number of children in Group Settings. Which is a good thing. We know far too many children are placed in residential settings. Thats the type of therapeutic intervention they need. Its the only place to place a child. And so it is not a question of balancing. Its a question of doing right by children. At the needed intervention need to be successful in a family than residential treatment that is high quality, that is therapeutic, that involves the family is an option. We are facing right now as you notes a crisis in finding enough places. That is twofold that one is the Foster Parent Retention Program i do not call a recruitment program. This lots of people interested in becoming Foster Parents. One person talked of the sacrifice of Foster Parents they dont see it as a sacrifice but they see it as a joy print they get frustrated during their time as a Foster Parents intend to quit it is not about money. Frankly its large about the support they get. And listen to Foster Parents talk to me how they gave up on themselves, not the children. They see children and thought ib should be doing a better job because soandso is not doing well. What they needed was a dedicated worker on a friday night cry child they are caring for was not doing as well as they wanted that child to do but they did not want to give up on Foster Parenting. They need to do in much better job of retaining what we have. Thank you for everyones testimony. Feel that my time. Represents 22 of our population. Thank you for being a note mystery are racing critical shortages of foster homes this has led to children as we have heard that in dangertu situatio. We have discussed in this hearing Treatment Facility in congregate care programs receiving Child Welfare funds. Must be meeting the standards of the qualified residentialra Treatment Program in addition to concerns of shortages of care options we must grapple with findings safe and secure placements for b children with severe trauma and behavioral issues. No child should fear o sleepingn a hotel room or in an office space we have a role to play in ensuring our kids are not missing crucial components of ttheir development. I want to start with ms. Peterson your testimony you mention programs like total 4b provide crucial support we have experienced this as a foster child your self. Caring virtually foster care system. How can programs like title iv be improved to provide the services to help families avoid the foster care system . Suite witness right rural area not every caseworker children remain with their biological as safe as possible easy to villain eyes biological parents. Even when it is possible they will remove the child. My despite as an adult deserves compassion and peace is often time it is the parents have experienced abuse are being w abused. Treat the chug of the same resources we would a child in terms of therapy, and help, and care. Children caruth are biological families. Often times unfortunately federal government, the State Government miss the signs and signals that should be catching. Often times of the community at levels groups are able to address specific issues that otherwise are missed by our government agencies. As a leading advocate in the space you have been. Thank you for times are Problem Solvers Caucus on your bill. Stakeholders be emboldened to be larger voices and addressing problems in the Child Welfare system. Thank you for being a sponsor of this act. I really appreciate you. Working with impact individuals. They are so important and we should all work with them to ensure we get the policies rachel. Right. Think it ms. Hilton. We are currently facing a shortage of foster homes and Treatment Facilities. Not meeting appropriate federal standards pretty speak to the issue of the shortage itself and the impact on our foster youth and children . Specifically those kids with behavioral issues . Clearly children sleeping in hospitals, hotels, or Emergency Rooms for weeks on end is not rach. It is not right. And yet scum let me be very clear that the answer is not more residential beds. When she meets the needs of the childrens and family based settings. That may include therapeutic foster homes but that may include additional training for Foster Parents and meeting the Mental Health needs of children. But it cannot mean placing a child who does not need that level of restriction in that type of facility. Thank you and thank all of you for being a voice for the voiceless i do appreciate it. Could i add one thing . I just want to add i worked with many families where the parents had to make the choice because they could not afford the appropriate level of care for their child to reacht out and access each Child Welfare system to say we can no longer care for a child we cannot afford the treatment that they need. There have been some states which have taken the action of making it you do not have to place a child in foster care for a family to use the resources of foster care that allows for more children to stay while they are accessing thoseei resources and their biological home for. Thank you for adding that we appreciate it. Mr. Chairman i yield back. Quick to chair it recognize a gentle lady from california representative sanchez for five minutes. Thank you. I want you first and foremost w thank all of our panelists your testimony today and ms. Hilton when i met you last year i was impressed by your courage in speaking out in the face of the horrific circumstances you experience in the fact you are using your platform to be a voice for some of those who are the most vulnerable in our society. As a mom to a teenager i am ldhorrified that abuse many children go through in the name of protecting them for i appreciate you taking the time today emphasizing in particular the importance of reauthorizing title for b program which i have to say is not seen an increase in funding since 2006. Reauthorizing title for b is a bipartisan effort you haveu hed theres plenty of o support for that. Even modest improvements to this program can make a huge difference for at risk youth. Surely we can all agree we need to a do better by the children o are put in our care. But doing better by these kids is not free. Need to increase the fund for safe and quality programs that insure childrens safety when he should be funding programs that stop children from entering foster care in the first place. Things like investing in communitybased and Protection Services ways in which she can keep kids with their parents for their extended Family Members or even dressed within their own communities is really critical. I just want to know and ms. Hilton i will start with you. Providing increased funding for programs that help keep kids out of foster care and ensure they can remain with their families would be a better benefit to these kids . Yes, i do agree with that. I agree we need to keep children safe in their own homes and with their families as much as possible. I believe we should reauthorize for necessary funding to help bolster communityur resources ad help keep Families Together. s orel anyone who doesnt think they need increase the funding would be helpful . I will just note you are being kind to send me k funding level has remained the same. After inflation i think i mentioned in my written testimony it has a 14 less and buying power than it did back then. Correct you are correct i think you are all in agreement not only is it critical to renew the programut but to really put our money where our mouth is when it comes to child wellbeing. I want to come to you the huge role poverty plays in the removal of children from their families i think you stated 75 of the children in the foster care system very highly correlates to poverty. Is that right . Guess to poverty as well as Substance Abuse disorders and drug dependencies. What increasing funding to things like snap, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or with the equipment infant children nutritional assistance programs or even programs like head start, with those who do anything in terms of reducing the numbers of kids from poor backgrounds and end up in the system . Absolutely as well as funds for childcare so people can actually work and have safe care for their children especially when something happens and they might have to miss work and not have to rely on people who might put them in danger of the Child Welfare system becoming involved as well as programs like tan after. Amen sister is a working mom i totally feel that. It is just interesting to meet we can all agree keeping because of the foster system is a better result and yet were not willing to make the investments of the programs its going to keep those kids on the foster care system. Before my time has expired i be remiss in failing to mention the huge disparities that basic children in the foster care system. Black and latino children heavily overrepresented in the foster care system. And in fact over the past five years the rate of latino children in foster care in this country has risen by more than 5 . We need to look at that fact these issues do not happen in the back it Racial Disparities in the Justice System, the foster care system in our interconnected and they create the perfect storm which causes a parents who cannot economically support their kids to have to surrender them into the system. I really believe in early interventions to try to keep kids from s ending up in the foster care system in the first place i want to thank the chairman for her indulgence and i yield back. Think in the chair recognize the gentleman from florida. Thank you madam chair. Mrs. Hilton thanknk you for sharing your experience with us today your testimony is extremely powerful and moving for whatpe happened to you and countless other i children is unacceptable and is a moral failing in our country must do better the ways and Means Committee has jurisdiction or a child left for programs it is our responsibility to ensure all children in care receive the highest quality care anden the checks. Dollars do not support abusive practices. The 2022 gao report on residential facilities highlighted the need for improved information sharing, Data Collection best practices between states and residential Treatment Facilities. Ccwe have heard horrific accouns from survivors about the time and congregate care facilities across the country. Atat the same time another many facilities in districts that do crucial work to provide necessary services. Ihe hope we can Work Together to root out abuse and better enhance use of facilities that do work. Its clear better federal guidance and information sharing a scene to root out abuse and keep americas youth safe. Progress has a power to back to you must exercise our authority to ensure better oversight and accountability of residential Youth Programs receiving federal funding. Your advocacy is brought these issues to the forefront thats why ive introduced a bipartisan bill with mr. Pannetta of california hr 8817 aims to increase transparency for residential Treatment Facilities by developing guidance on best practices are federal agencies and states it. Guidance will focus on collecting data sharing information related to Youth Wellbeing and residential Treatment Facilities improving data on maltreatment enhancing oversight of youth residential programs that receive federal funding. My first question is do you think federalt agencies work wh eachnc other to address these issues . Thank you. Its so great to see you again. Thank you for your dedication on this issue. By introducing that bill all of the survivors and i are so grateful to you for taking action on this issue. I believe interagency collaboration is very important for these facilities treat foster youth kids and the Justice System youth with disabilities and youth with Mental Health issues. All of the agencies must Work Together to address the abuse and neglect that is happening but we cannot fix the issue if we dont look at it as a whole. And i work with state legislatures to pass legislation for enhanced oversight of youth residential facilities. Can you share any examples of states and up implement a particular effective reforms . I know with utah we have made a lot of progress with children being able to speak to their families without someone sitting right next to them. Also with the medical restraints, that iss another issue. It is important you continue using our voices so we can pass this to build a quick search like to add to that . Other states where you have seen reforms that have made effective changes . Im not familiar with any necessary policies. I do believe it is crucial children are able to talk to parents. Able to talk to caseworkers about the situations in their home for it but the Foster Parents are doing but what is happening in the residential facility that they are living in. Confidentiality and alone they can tell them if anything is happening that is dangerous. The time that i have remaining mr. Dean is raising you like to add . You talk about accountability i would like to point out the data we tend to lack on the children who experience Group Settings. One is, who are these children . What are the conditions that led them to these facilities in the first place . We have this assumption these children have severe Mental Health needs. And yet Research Shows a large percentage of them have no diagnosis whatsoever. Bouncing around from foster home to foster home. Most children who spend time in a Group Setting do so their first night in foster care. If they were never given the chance to succeed in a family. We know that high quality Residential Care can usually be delivered within 90 days. Within 90 days is generally the intervention that needs to take mace. If place. And yet the average length of stay in many places are is nine months or more. Is so we need to understand whats actually happening in addition to the horrific abuse that youve heard about. So its all of that. Thank you for all the a witnesses that are here today. I yield back. The chair now recognizes mr. Gentlelady from new york, claudia tenney. Thank you, chairman, and also to the Ranking Member and thank you to the witnesses for testimony and compassionate view on this issue. Its long overdue to update and i really appreciate that. Reauthorizing this program to prevent abuse and neglect and the cost of current Child Welfare programs, i come from the state of new york where there are over 25,000 children in foster care our child care system is plagued with problems that all of you have outlined and aim to address to try to fix to the reauthorization, high cost, homelessness, challenges entering the workforce when they pleated foster care and lack of legal representation which is something that really hits home to me. When i was a fulltime practicing lawyer i did a lot of pro bono work and i worked with families for free on child custody, abuse and neglect, adoption cases, it is very complex. A district andic region that was big cities, mediumsize cities, rural areas, suburban areas and all the same issue coming up. I wanted to first ask mr. Gean,h i know its a huge issue, the administration of children and Family Division within hhs has recently finalized rule allowing states use their title e funds to cover legal fees per parents and children involved in welfare cases. The ensuring legal representation for Child Welfare act which calls on the states to outline approaches to providing legal representation and supporting families. The legislation aims to bolster state planning and encourage strategies that enhance Family Support, could you tell us how legal representation for children and parents typically those with legal representationa tend to have a Better Outcomes and i like the Legal Aid Society and giving pro bono work but it helps people that are assigned to these cases . Seso i appreciate you raising the issue of legal representation. In my opening remark i talk about the polarizing rhetoric that gets in the way of Bipartisan Solutions and this is an area where i hear some folksh talking about parents rights and other people talking about children rights as if they are somehow in conflict. Yet people in the field know that both are required to move a case forward and the earlier in the process that families are engaged with legal representation, the more likely it is that they are going to have successful outcomes and that the cases will move forward expeditiously. Great, thank you so much for that, i wanted to say thank you to mrs. Hilton for doing such aa leader on this issue and it was really a unique opportunity to see you and how well youve done, all be e it it was a zoom call with your adorable son, youre just a loving mother, i have to say that this experience for you must have impacted you so greatly as you describe. You talked a little bit with my colleague aboutue how, you know, the bill provides transparency and y you mentioned that utah is providing some reforms, but what think welly do you could do to add Mental Health and counseling support and how can we incorporate in the billry along with trying to meet the goals that are already in this reauthorization . Well, thank you, i enjoyed our zoom call and i love your jacket, the sparkles are amazing. I had a little bling for today. Yeah, i want to find out who made it later but i think the most important thing is they need to access to therapy counseling, mentorship and other communitybase programs and i think its also important to not label these kids as troubled or bad. I think itbl makes these childrn feel like they arent believed and thats something thats important for them not to feel that way and, yeah, i think its just about showing kindness andg love and compassion and support and giving these kids life skills that they can use in life because otherwise we are just setting them up to fail. Did you have access to any of this therapy or anything when you were in your situation . No. And i was only sent there because i was getting bad grades, i was just ditching classes, i had a i have adhd and thats something that they werent really just talking about back then, so somebody recommended that i go to these schools. My parents had no idea they just thought it was going to be a normal boarding school and when i gotre there there was no therapy, we would just constantly be torn down, abused, screamed at, yelled at, no education whatsoever, i learned nothing there except trauma. I think my time has run out, i want to say thank you to you and everyone. I wished i could have asked you all ask question, this is a gret hearing and i yield back. The chairman now recognizes the general lady from washington representative. Thank you madame chair, thank you to all of our witnesses, thank you for taking the time to join us. In 2021 democrats expanded the Child Tax Credit through the American Rescue plan and not only did this historic slashed poverty in half in six monthsab but enabled parents to pay fore essentials like housing, groceries, day care and as a result parents no longer had to fear losing their kids to the foster system do to economic adversity. Miss hilton during your time advocating for children and families, you met foster youth that expressed that would have been expressed by economicou support and would have helped avoid being in foster care and is that true and if so, do you have any stories to chair . Yes, definitely, just ive talked to so many survivors and thats what they needed, they needed to have that support and they didnt and its just sobr heartbreaking to know that these kids didnt belong in these type of places just because they lost maybe their parents did something that they werent able to take care of them or one of their Family Members died and its just it just really heartbreaking to always hear these stories of them not getting any support whatsoever and then seeing these innocent kids who were then sent to these places and just being exposed to so many things that no child should ever have to witness and if they would have just had that support maybe things could have been different for them. Thank you. Mr. Gene, from your experience with the day Thomas Foundation for adoption and i know congresswoman sanchez brought this up too, how important it is wellbeing of families at risk for entering the foster care system . So theres a growing body and i would call it probably a robust body now of research that clearly shows that additional Financial Assistance reduces the risk of Child Maltreatment and thats on the front end of the spectrum. Once children are involved in the Child Welfare system Financial Resources are needed to keep kids out of the system and also to make sure that their cared for while theyre in the system. And what role doyo you think Financial Measures like child credit prevent kids from entering the foster care and what are the consequences when these kinds of benefits expire . So as i say, i think the research is now pretty clear that giving families additional Financial Assistance reduces maltreatment and children arent maltreated, they are much less likely to end up in the foster care system so theres a direct link there. Yeah, we have lots of data on the expanded Child Tax Credit and the benefit and, againe following up to something congresswoman sanchez was saying. If we invest now and prevent kids from being in these situations not only do we have better outcome for our kids, we save a lot of money along the way too, so we can make smart investments, help families, have kids have great outcomes and be fiscally responsible at the same time. You knowme what, im from the state of washington and the Washington State department of children youth relies on 4b fund to go provide Critical Community Services Including family preservation, family reunification, Family Support and adoption promotions, promotion support, unfortunately, the allocated 4b grant amounts are often exceeded by the need, knowing that the intent of 4b is to support more up front and family focused efforts, how can congress ensure that states are receiving the necessary 4b grants and the amounts that they require to be successful . So i think that we have to understand how title 4b interacts with the funding strings. 4b is a very small amount of Overall Investment from the federal government. I think part of the question is how can 4b be a pipeline for the development of programs that then can be funded through the prevention side of title 4e, so we need to think about these programs together. Thank you, and as congress looks to reauthorize 4b, what barriers Must Congress remove to help states and tribes take advantage of the preventive funding made available by the family first Prevention Services act . Yeah, as i mentioned, theres tremendous support for the concept of vision of family first. People want to believe in prevention and theyre runningo into real challenges. The Clearing House for one, the definitions in the Clearing House of what it means to be supported, welll supported, promising are not consistent with other rigorous databases, so we cant just take programs that have already been proven to be successful in other databases and bring them into the clearint house. You mentioned the tribes, a lot of the evaluation criteria within the 4b Prevention Program are not aligned with the way tribes operate. So theres work to be done and ive also mentioned the idea of how tode provide concrete suppos getting to your Financial Assistance question, how can we provide that as part of 4e . Theres a concern among some that we dont want Child Welfare to become a parallel Financial Assistance system. We dont want there to be an incentive to come into Child Welfare, we are already concerned that too many families are being referred at the same time there are some opportunities with limited time, timelimited funds to keep Families Together and out of Child Welfare that doesnt serve as a magnet. So how can we use the 4b Prevention Program for that . Thank you, i yield back madame chair. I will remind the membersth that theres a 5minute time limit. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from oklahoma representative hern. Thank you, chair, thanks the witnesses for being here today. I really appreciate it very much. Ive spoken on this committee about circumstances which led me to run for congress. Growing in an environment that took hard work, education and the right opportunities for me to make it to this point in my life. Im not confident today where we stand now that a child growing up today in a similar or other uncertain circumstances would have the same opportunity or ability to achieve the american dream. In 2021 in oklahoma over 7,000 children were in foster care and over 13,000 children were the victims of maltreatment. The vast majority of these cases were neglect. Child welfare programs funded through title 4b gives states the flexibility to help their Vulnerable Children ideally before they have to enter the foster care system. I appreciate the witnesses being here today to testify so that we can make the necessary changes to ensure we are ready and reaching as many children as possible. One way to do this is by reducing the Regulatory Burden so that title 4b funding recipients can spend more time helping children and families and less time waiting through red tape. Right now, well, Child Welfare payments are made to tribes to two different funding allocations, one of this goes to states directly to tribal guaranties, creating contractsng with eligible tribes based on the scope of Child Welfare work facilitating tribes claims and issuing reimbursement. The current process is slow and burdensome for both parties. While impacted children are waiting on muchneeded help. This is why im working on legislation to modernize the funding structure by allowing Indian Tribes to be paid directly without decreasing funds to the states. Mr. Geen, you mentioned in your testimony that there is a widespread support for reducing the Administrative Burden associated with federal funding particularly for tribes, can you give us a little more information on that and what you think about the Administrative Burden as its impacting states and tribe ability to provide aid to impacted children . Absolutely. Ive heard tribes tell mee that theyve declined federal resources because the amount of work it takes to get it is more than the value of the grants. If the Administrative Burden was related to ensuring that we understood how funds were being spent and Holding States accountable it would be one thing, but as i mentioned before to a large extent, many of the reporting requirements we have are nothing more than exercise of checking a box and so we do need to talk about accountability. We do need to make sure that children are doing well and that federal resources are being spent effectively. But the burden that we are placing on states is not achieving that and its coming at a cost from doing the work with children and families. I appreciate that response. What do you say policy solution to alleviate the burden and do you think allowing direct fund to go tribes will help mitigate this problem . I have certainly heard from from tribal experts that that is something they are seeking, so i will defer to their knowledge and suggest that that seems to be aligned with what ythey want . S so u dont have any direct solutions at this moment to share . Again, i would take a look at all of the reporting requirements and say what is this getting us, is this really assuring us that we are doing well by these children or is it makes us feel good that we are getting a report or or something signed that suggests something is being done . I appreciate your response. It makes me think of a particular member of congress that often ask us about the work that we do here. Are we doing here or are we just feeling good, i really appreciate it, thank you. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from utah representative moore for five minutes. Thank you, thank you to chairman smith and Ranking Member neil forng holding this important hearing today, being able to come together to discuss title 4b funding is not always the most, you know, headline capturing work that we do here but it is crucial. This Funding Provides component, funding to state courts, Child Welfare systems and supporting timely hearings for children in foster care. Alongside representative miller and representatives i introduce the bipartisan Court Improvement Program Enhancement act to promote modernization efforts including utilization of technology for remote hearings ngand best practices. Mr. Geen, i appreciate the work that you do and your connection to the day Thomas Foundation for adoption. I i have had a chance to meet him in my senior year in high school, my life was never was never the same after that. So thank you for working on such an important thing and i assume with your celebrity status andus social Media Presence is why we are experiencing such a high volume of participation and audience today. Can you elaborate, back tome Improvement Program why its such a critical element for 4b reauthorization and Technological Advancements can further improvern outcomes for children in foster care. Yes, i will reiterate a couple of the things i said earlier. We focused on the flexibility of 4b and it is absolutely essential and yet there are some set asides and congress has made some really intelligent choices about areas that have suffered from underinvestment and lack of attention and Court Improvement program is one of them. Tits relatively small amount f money but it is a critical resource to improve the quality of the hearings that take place every single day. When you talk about the Technological Innovations ive mentioned this before that states learned a lot during covid. They were forced into a different situation and they had to figure out how to continue to hold the hearings in an environment of covid and safety procedures and so they experimented a lot and i think that theres lot to be learned from that period of time. Court organizations have looked at those remote hearings have suggested theres some very good positives coming out of it but its not a universal positive. You still need to hold the hearings in a quality fashionon and to investing in the training and understanding of how to use the technology in an effective way seems like a good investment. Thank you, the Thomas Foundation and other folks that are trying to find your forever families, part of your testimony was touching and to find stability in your life. Negative impacts of timing out of foster care are catastrophic for the communities, thank you for your work on that. Ms. Hilton, great toai see yout again, thank you for the work that you do, advocacy work that you do not only in the state of utah but here at the federal level as well and had a few chances to meet. T. From your perspective and interactions with former foster youth how can federal and State Governments better collaborate with Community Organizations and other stakeholders in our communities to improve outcomes for children and families in the system . Thank you, so good to see you again as well. I think its important for people to Work Together, figure out ways where we can make the biggest difference and i think its important for there to be transparency so that people know its happening in both places. So thank you for your voice in this. Lastly ms. Peterson as i mentioned your story earlier anything you would like to add with the involvement as i talk about state and federal government and local community, religious organizations also play a big role and anything that we need to do to make sure that they have a place and a voice in this, in this, the outcome share as well. Yeah, i just like to mention the small percentage of youth who are like me who couldnt go back with their biological parents, i endured years of abuse and years of trying reunification this in n which it didnt work and i was labeled unadoptable and i just believe that no child should be labeled that, that every child is adoptable and its why its so crucial that Community Churches come together so that children with be in families. The chair recognizes gentleman representative for five minutes. Thank you, madame chair and i thank the chairman and Ranking Member for holding the very important hearing. Its really important to me personally along time ago my first job, my first real job was working in the Child Welfare system and working in an agency, Children Center in my hometown of flint which for 98 years now has been doing an extraordinary job of creating, dealing with the challenges for our most atrisk kids in our society and i think one to have things that i take away i from this hearing despite the fact that there was, i think, really important critique of some of the residential settings and certainly the Life Experience of miss hilton points to that, bringing kids back to a permanent loving stable home. Often that means reforming our foster system, often that does mean also ensuring that when residential treatment is required and we have to acknowledge that there are conditions where its required, that its done so at the highest possible level with the greatest possible scrutiny with ample funding to make sure that that care is delivered in a way that as soon as possible puts that child in the position to be in a safe and loving home. The entire system needs that attention. Im ive been happy to work with my friend congressman on legislation to deal with with some of that. Our strengthening Evidence Base Prevention Services act which is legislation that would support families, reduce the number of kids that are in foster care is a really important step, back in 2018 also the committee spearheaded efforts, signed into law that fundamentally reoriented our Child Welfare system to keep more kids safely in their homes whenever that is possible. H it did that by providing federal funds to states to offer those Prevention Services that we hava been talking about. Our bill would expand access to those services across the country by creating a new Grant Program to help fill the gaps and mr. Geen you mentioned and the data to see really what does work. I wonder in a few minutes talk a little bit about how investing in that Additional Research and evaluation would help us overcome some of the barriers to the utilization, the effective utilization of these funds. There is a frustration amongst the states of the low progress of programs being approved for title 4b prevention funding. There is a need to figure out how can we speed that process up, how do we invest in theea research necessary to turn promising approaches, practicebased evidence into research and there are opportunities to look at other databases of effective programs and figure out how can we make them available for Child Welfare. If i might, do i want to comment on your on your conversation about residential treatment because ive said this and i believe highquality residential treatment is lifesaving for the children who need it. It is a twofold problem, one is we need to make sure its only being used when it is absolutely necessary but when it is used, it does need to be exceptional high quality. There are people who will related to qualified residential Treatment Program standards, but i will tell you that i feel like theyre below the minimum level of what i would consider if i had to place one of my children so as we look at those standards wconsider what those actually , it is really meeting allow bar. Have as aspiration, as their soul goal to try to lift these kids out of the circumstance they may be in and get them into a permanent loving family home and not see it again as ms. Hilton referenced in her testimony, not see it as a business to turn thesese kids as if they are a product in a material system, these are human beings, their aspirations are the same as everyone else, their potential is enormous. I meet kids, they are not kids anymore, occasionally i will meet someone who is older than i am and sudden i realize it was a child that i may have worked with decades ago and they recall the smallest act of kindness which we take for granted, the smallest acts of kindness, i remember. Unfortunately the other side of the coin is also true. They can be hurt by some of the most callus acts of people that dont see them in their basic humanity. I appreciate the panel, i appreciate the work that youre doing. Im sorry for going a few seconds over and i yield back. Thank you. Ms. Steel. It is my turn. Thank you for hosting this hearing and thank you very much for all witnesses staying so many hours. I worked withve foster and other at risk youth in california and ive been seeing these kids. You were talking about, we really have to do the work before, age out of the system because i saw a lot of kids when they hit 18 and a lot of kids joining gang members or they become Homeless People in california so i saw that. I saw 12yearold having second baby, so you know, it was shock to go me how are we really going solve this problem so thank you oufor all coming today, we realy have to fix this system and as congressman ferguson mentioned, the Foster Youth Health support act and create Mental Health services for children and teenagers in foster system, many children who have experienced time in foster care system have complex trauma from their removals and changing placements and sadly many children do not get access to Mental Health resources. So ms. Peterson from your experience in foster care and as a mother caring for children with complex trauma, what kind ofor Mental Health challenges do your children in foster Care Experience . In my first foster home there was abuse that happened and i reported it and placed in a residential facility. And i see now, i always look back on that experience and i think, wow, i really needed the therapy that was offered to me, but when i look back on that, i also realize that i could have used that therapy in a family setting. It was when i was in a family setting that all of the things that were taught to me and were spoken over me in therapy that i was loved that i was important, that i was chosen, like those things were spoken over, me buti didnt believe them until a family showed them to me and soo i think thats why its so important we have to have the Mental Health services but we also have to have the family setting that proves to children who they really are. Thank you, mr. Geen, you highlighted highlighted in your testimony that bipartisan has long been a hallmark of federal Child Welfare, could you discuss how maintaining bipartisan support is critical for ther success of child welfae initiatives and ensuring that children have safe stable families and to improve our nation, Child Welfare assistance especially if we want if Mental Health services . Im going answer that, i just want to add onto what tory said about Mental Health which is when we talk about Mental Health we often talk about and i hate to use these words because i dont like it, fixing childrenld rather than giving them what they need and giving their caregivers what they need so we need to help parents care for kids, so that is also a part of it. To your question about bipartisanship, first i will say that this very committee has demonstrated that both historically with legislation through family first and through the series of hearings that youve had over the year, the importance of bipartisanship. I was very much structuring the landscape assessment we did as part of the Bipartisan Policy Center project, how often there was commonality in a diagnosis of what was wrong with the system and the solutions and yet it was the language that people were using that made discussions hard. I will also note the wide variations in states and communities. Youre going to pass legislation which will then have to be implemented in a host of different environments, it is absolutely essential to ensure when it goes out into the field to be implemented that it will meet the local needs. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Todays hearing has given the opportunity to highlight the important work that this committee is doing ensure Child Welfare agencies and those in the foster care system have the resources and the tools needed to provide care to those most vulnerable. The reauthorization of title 4b provides an opportunity to discuss ways in which we can introduce Program Efficiency and modernized Child Support programs during our hearing last november on strengthening Child Support enforcement one of our witnesses cited the state departments passport denial program which prohibits passport renewal or parents that owe more than 2,500 in Child Support, one of the most effective mechanism that is the federal government has to enforce pastdue support onliations and, not only prohibiting renewal ofg passport but requiring passport be revoked. We need outside the box ideas to ensure the children have resources they deserve and this is a prime example of type of Child Welfare program that we should aim to answer as we move forward with reauthorization. We need to be e elevating polics and programs like passport denial program proven to work effectively. Mr. Geen, given your experience whatat are some key strategies r policies that you believe could help improve the overall quality of Child Welfare services. We have heard from some of our members on the other side of the aisle that is about money, that we need more funds, i cant tell you often im in officened everybody who comes into my office, we need more money. I will remind the panelists, the members here that a lot of times when we throw more money at aat problem, it increases the cost while decreasing the care and decreasing the quality. I can give you examples of health care, i can give you examples of education where thats the case, its not always about the money. Tell me how we can more effectively help the industry and how we can be more supportive without just throwing more money at it . So i will start with i agree with you thatt its not just about the money, its how that money is spent and so one of the questions is we talked earlier about the disproportionate amount of allocatednds that are for foster care and adoption and youre reauthorizing a program thats 4 of federal funds for Child Welfare, how do we figure out a way to be able to incentivize the performance of states to achieve the outcomes we want for kids and still be able to maintain the level of federal investment. Today if you prevent a child from going into foster care, you actually lose the federal investment on the foster care side by spending prevention money. So thats not how case workers think. They dont make a decision based on whether they are getting federal reimbursement, but the ability to keep a child out of foster care is based on what else is out there and part of the challenges as we try to reduce something we have to increase something else. Thats where the new money is actually needed. Its not a permanent increase, its an ability to shift what youre doing from the status quo to best practice. All right, thank you. Earlier this year article highlight texas. Pendture of over 250 million on housing foster children iner unsafe, unregulated facilities, federal the Court Documents anda testimonies, these facilities lack essential services, basic necessities such as readily available food and consistent supervision crucial for the States Foster children. The budget allocated no funds for Mental Health treatment despite extensive documentations of high Mental Health needs and exhibit aggression. The situation highlights the challenge of states across the country are grappling with shortage of placement with Mental Health needs. Texas ranks among the top states with kids in foster care withh more than 31,000 most of whom suffer neglect, physical abuse and lack of proper treatment is inexcusable. Ms. Hilton from your experience what are the outcomes for youth placed in these kinds of t facilities . Thank you for highlighting that article. Its so concerning what the foster youth have experienced, the outcomes for the youth are horrible and children are being abused and dying in these kinds of facilities and just survive asking the best case scenario. B i feel grateful where i am in life after my experience but most dont end up having access to education and they end up homeless, having trauma and High Percentage commit suicide because they dont know how tope deal with the experience. The government is paying for this abuse and we must stop it. Thank you very much, ms. Hilton and i yield back. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, thank all of you for hanging for four hours already, youre patient and brave. I also want to comment that ive been really thrill today listen to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle with the compassion, the concern that theyve expressed for this issue. Also ms. Peterson i approve of your faithbase approach to this. I know this christianity, judaism and islam and others, i see tons of faithbased nonprofits in the areas i represent committed to trying to lift up everyone. The challenge, of course, for us as leaders in government is that the faithbased things are not enough in our current society. We also have to figure out how to use government to address this constructively. Miss hilton, thank you for your bravery. You mentioned own traumatic experiences. So many families are left in the dark aboutes this. When i got here ten years ago inherited a bill call the keeping all family safe act and working on it unsuccessfully but its recognizing that there are at least 22 states that have labsolutely no guidelines, law, rules about and many states that do have it are insufficient. Can you in terms of your own experience how harmful was it for you and other children to be in see colluded and restrained in longterm consequences . From personal experience it was extremely traumatic and just experiencing that on a daily t basis seeing my other peers being restrained and just for no reason. It was just the power was abuse all of the time by the Staff Members and restrain and seclusion led to child deaths, cornelius fredericks, she was restrained till he couldnt breathe and died at 16 years old. For staff locking him in a restraint and seclusion tent overnight until he couldnt breathe. Restraint and see collusion are not therapeutic, ask anyone who has experienced it and i believe that congress should do more to protect youth from these practices. Its very helpful to have you say that and speak of firmly. You know, the office, the u. S. Department of Education Office of civil rights is responsible for collecting all of the data and they suggest 2300 times per school day on average upwards of 102,000 students for academic year, sadly, we tend to underfund that agency and when we are pushing hard that it has the resources it needs to do that. How important do you think it is to be able to measure this, to have the federal government have those statistics on the states and schools . Its extremely important, we need to know whats happening inside the walls of these facilities as the industry is not transparent. Staff are often taking the easy route of restraining or secluding a child instead of helping them and this causes the child to have trauma and we must provide them with treatment and not subject them to harm. Yeah. Mr. Geen and ms. Mansfield, im not sure best to answer this year ago i was a big brother for a young man named clifford who was a foster child living in a home that was desperately poor. It was very clear that they took him in because of the cash that came with him. Not that it was a lot of cash but enough to feed the others in the household. Ive heard scores of time that the typical foster child experience is to move from home toic home to home. And yet mr. Geen, you talked about that the problem is retention and not recruitment. How do we deal with the fact or what the account for the fact that so many foster children have bad experience after bad experience, mrs. Peterson 12 different places and we have a surplus of people that want to be responsible Foster Parents, this doesnt make sense to me. Let me start by saying that your experience with a Foster Parent quote, unquote, doing it for the money is incredibly rare exception. The vast majority of Foster Parents spend far more on their children than they receive from government agencies. The number of people who start inquiring and get involve in Foster Parenting. If we hold onto them, we would have enough home for every single child. T Foster Parents tend to give up when they dont think they are doing a good job. Yes, they do need Financial Assistance. Many of them are challenged financially, what they need most is support. Their peers and from someone who will listen to them and help them care for the child thats been placed in their home. My time is up but at some point i would love i to hear frm ms. Peterson why she gave up on them and why they gave up on you. Thank you, ms. Hilton for coming forward and telling your story, your memoir and mrs. Peterson, thank you, you are all children of god. We always have to remember that, so thank you. In 2018 Congress Passed the family first Prevention Services act and one ofs the largest chid welfare reforms in state history, the bill represented a shift in how we approach Child Welfare recognizing that children do best when they grow up in a family and in communities, its so big. We start to focus more on helping strengthen families by responding to the root causes that were splintering them apart and leaving children in the foster care program. The goal of prevention is to help families Stay Together and the importance of this has only grown as the foster care prograf seems to increasingly get strained because of maximum capacity. Mr. Geen, you highlighted the successes of the progress of the family first Prevention Services act in your opening statement, however, there are stillnt barriers in the full implementation, its crucial to have wide variety of. Evidencebase programs available in the Clearing House representative kilmeade introduced services act to establish new competitive Grant Program aimed at supporting Prevention Programs through research and evaluations which are required to receive federal support, so my question is this, mr. Geen, do you believe theres a need for more diverse array of programs in this hearing house . So as a recovering researcher i currently support evidencebase policy and evidencebased funding decisions at the same time theres absolutely no doubt in my mind that states need a broader array of programs to invest in. What we dont want to happen and what i fear could happen is a state looks at the Clearing House and says this is what is well supported so this is what we are going to pay for and invest in. Without an understanding of whether these programs actually meet the needs of children and families in their community and so there is theres absolutely a need to expand the variety of the programs so that each state and community and tribe can look at their own circumstances and find out what works for them. And what barriers, so i agree, you and i agree on this, so what are the bash years, why arent we doing this . I think there are a number of things. One, it gets down the way the legislation was written and the words that we use for promising, practice wellsupported and supported. There was a period of time when congress had a temporary authorization to allow states to get reimbursement if 50 of their programs were either supported or well supported, now we are back to what the traditional legislation says which is it has to be 50 of wellsupported. This is why i worry about states just looking at those wellsupported programs without the knowledge of what do they actually need in their community. Heyeah, yeah. So exactly right. So we have 50 states. How do we manage this . Partnering then with the states and their programs . So i will say theres progress being made which is good, we are seeing states investing more in prevention through 4e, there are growing numbers of programs being approved by the Clearing House. Do i think the authorization of 4b places an Important Role here. States can use 4b to test a program thats not yet approved on the Clearing House. They can test it, they can say, yeah, this meets our needs and then hopefully it will get through the approval process. Do i think that approval process needs to be sped up. Yeah, thank you, thank you so much for that. Mrs. Peterson i just have a question, congressman kilmeade noted. If you had to look, back, okay, 12 homes or Something Like that, what was the root cause, i mean, of of these families and changing homes and all this stuff . Do you have any solutions to say, all right, we dont want this to other children what happened to you . Yes, my time in care i was the second time i went to care i went as teenager and we know that teenagers it is hard to find placements for them more so than it iso Young Children. Teenagers in foster care are stigmatized and viewed very unfairly. I was a 4. 0 student, i was a good athlete and it was hard for me to find placement and it was hard for me to retain placement because people Foster Parents want to adopt little children and so little children would come into the home and then i would be moved to the next home and there were also, theres a lot of rules in the foster care system revolving youth and foster care and the normalcy act passed after it had emancipated, the rules that my peers did not follow because they werent putting me in danger, they were just i want today have a normal experience as ae teenager as any teenager would and so i was either either moved out because the family was establishing the family through adoption or because of rules that i didnt follow. Thank you. Thank you for that. We need solutions and i yield back. Mr. Kerry. I want to thank the chair and point of personal privilege today, my mother and father were divorced when i was probably no more than 3 to 4 months old, ttoday is my mothers birthdayo im not sure how many people are watching cspan but i know that she is happy birthday mother. Listen, i just want to tell you, this is some of the bipartisan stuff that many of us got elected to congress to actually do, many of us dont like a shot at the rain all day. We want to find solutions and i wish that many of you could join us for our lunch, in between. I was with my dear calling on the democratic side buyer, and we had a great discussion about this issue, not for the cameras, but i just want you to know that there are people in congress whether theyre republican or whether theyre democrat or independent that really want to keep this country moving forward and this is a big issue that we do have bipartisan support, so to that end, mr. Chairman, i also want to thank you for having this hearing. T i want to thank the Ranking Member as well, but i also want to thank thenk witnesses for beg here today to discuss this critical need to reauthorize the 4b of the Social Security tax act. Last week alongside my dear friend, representative, i introduced the promoting communitybase Prevention Services act, this legislation will allow states greater flexibility in their allocations of funds to family, resource center. When parents feel supported, families thrive and that is why im proud to help guaranty these resources can be available in every Community Across the country for every family that might need them. Miss hilton you have a tremendous team. There are in our offices a lot talking about the issues that are very important to you and all credit to your team on that. Family first requires the qualified residential Treatment Programs or the qrtps to have a license clinical staff availabll 24 7. Based on your advocacy and the experience are these staffing requirements being met consistently andei effectively . Thank you. My teamec and i love working wih you and your team and happy birthday to your mom as well. Thank you. And i appreciate the politys work on family first. Im not a policy expert but based on my lived experience the staff are untrained and unfit to work with children, license staff is important but the floor staff, the people who do the overnight shifts and the hard work, they need to be locked at as well. These facility keep costs as low as possible to keep they would take kids to rooms without cameras, beat them up and physically and sexually abuse them. Theres a lot of sexual abuse that happens, i just heard a situation right now where a 12yearold foster youth is pregnant because she was sexually abused by staff. I think we need stronger oversight over who works with children as children are dying at the hands of these staff. And, really, kind of as a followup to that, what further training or education requirements should be imposed aton staff in these facilities o better support and protect our youth in your opinion . I think that there needs to be checks on these people and background checks as well and they need to be trained in how to deal with children and i think that you guys could speak better on that. Well, thats all right. Im about down to a minute and i appreciate your testimony, ms. Peterson i did want to talk to you. Your opening testimony, all of you, b mentioned the young peope that are in foster care that are through the adoption process today and that help is on the way and that we want to we want them to be we want them to know that theres somethingt on the other side and to that end, your founder mr. Thompson, mr. Thomas has been a legend. I know his daughter, granddaughter ali is a good friend of mine but what he was able to do given his situation and if you look at the franchisees with the wendys corporation across the country because of what he did he created more than 200,000 jobs. Every life matters. And i want everybody who is listening and watching today to know that. And i appreciate all of you coming in here today. It means a lot and with that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Panetta. Thank you, mr. Chairman, appreciate it. Ladies, gentleman, thanks for being here. I appreciate you being a part of this good governing that youre seeing right here today. However as you testified, though, you we want to make sure that we can do everything thato we can to ensure the wellbeing of our foster youth there was 2022 accountability report that unfortunately revealed that there are absolutely alarming amount of instances of maltreatment, maltreatment and abuse in federallyfunded Youth Residential Treatment Centers and in that report the gao recommended certain steps that need to be taken to address thek abuse but also help federal agencies can support local agencies and also make sure that theres better oversight. That is why im working andat partnering with my colleague greg steube on this committee on the bipartisan hr8817, bill that would mandate federal agencies to collect the appropriate data, collaborate to develop guidance and best practices for those states receiving title 4b funds and report on how we can improve wellbeing. The goal of this bill is to provide proper oversight for those youth residential programs that receive federal funding. R and weve consulted with a number of federal agencies on our bill and the agencies that would be mandated to share thisw information and collaborate include hhs, department of education, the administration for children and families, the center for medicare and medicaid services, the department of justice and i, quote, other policy experts. Mr. Green, hi first question to you, who should those other policy experts be in your opinion and are there any agencies that we should be consulting with on this matter . So i would be remiss iff i didnt answer this question ldlooking at the people next to me. One of the folks who needs to be here, the category folks that needs to be involved are people who have lived experience in the system. They need to have a voice and making sure that what is being developed is sound. Let me also say that we absolutely need to be able to collect data on the abuses in these facilities. Thats not enough. Would you place your child at a facility that you knew didnt abuse them, well, that is the minimum you possibly need. You want to look at quality and make sure they are not taking young people who dont need to be there. You want to make sure they are not holding onto young people for longer periods of time that they need the intervention, what difference does itit make, theyl continue to get paid . You want to make sure as another one of your colleagues mentioned theres not the abuse of drugs or policy pharmacy is. So as we look into this accountability, it goes far beyond just saying, theyre not abusing kids. Understood and thats exactly why in that bill we want these agencies to come up with best practices for the state receiving these types of funds. Let me take it one step furtherh mr. Geen. Obviously we have a direct role overseeing funds that place children in the settings but we dont have the same power of the purse when it comes to private facilities and private insurance, can you talk to us about the leverage that can be used over private facilities that are not paid through the title 4b program . It is my understanding, again, there are people on this panel who may know differently than i that many of these private institutions are serving kids from multiple different populations. Some are caring for foster kids, juvenile justice kids, truance. Probably doing good work. They are nonprofit facilities that are doing work that are at least abusive if not more. While i appreciate the question to look at the totality not focus on one of the other prick works absolutely thats why focus on both. Hothose facilities that are receiving federal funds and private facilities as well put in obviously making sure we come up with solutions for proper overset on both. Thank you, things to all of you mr. Chairman i yield back. Thank you. Cause him to think it all for being here it is been a very difficult, heartbreaking hearing. Very important but the spotlight on these atrocities happening every Work Together for solutions to end the abuse of these children. I represent new york city. Sadly thereve been a number of instances over the last few years of children that were killed they were killed either in their home by their parents because their cases fell through thear crooks. We had one child a 3yearold who was beaten and they knew about. From there was a homeless shelter. Ive been beaten to death another foster care home ended ndup with a Drug Overdose and died. How do we work with local agencies . Or can the federal government do too have more accountability for the local agencies . It is a balancing act. At the other hand have these children to end up dead. Do you have thoughts, about what we can do as a federal government tried to hold accountability for local partners . Outsourcing a single death is a tragedy. We also can learn from those instances and localities known the problem to seem larger than it is. The child fatality issue is a large and we do not want to that actually is. We need to more Accountability Measures too make font why those children fell through the crooks where were they neglected . Was it a staffing issue . Recognizing the impossible decision we are putting up on aisles db stereotypic new caseworker with very limited information. It is unfortunate tragedy that children die. Its impossible to make that decision removing the child harms them, causes them trauma its often not the best scenario. We do not when over react as well. Making policy using a small number of incidents issue is outcome to do more harm than good. At the end proud to sponsor the bill being advocated and is a great step. Without success in passing on a state level. Can you talk about the changes youve seenng happening of simir legislation . We have helped past nine state laws. That is not enough. It needs to be on a federal level. The positive part about it people know they are being watched and the abuse is still happening in children are still dying. And that name of treatment thats what stop child abuse act is sold important and thank you for supporting it i appreciate that. Today nbc came out with anai article states failed to track abuse in foster care facility housing thousands of children this was based on health and Human Resources office of Inspector General report. To assure the information months of facilitating its operating other states and those are contracting with the sameit company thats an issue whether transparency issues would you like to see that could help us with oversight component . I have another question. I may give you the question you can expand im running out of time. The topic of Social Security benefits being garnished by states for foster care is a growing issue. A small portion of foster youth are eligible for ssi benefits. Sometimes inheritance from their parents who passed away can be perfectly helpful for them as they work to prepare to transition from foster care. Maybe give them a basis to start with but im concerned about the lack of transparency of that issue t the ssi benefits and beg taken by the states can you comment on that and if that is something you look to reform . Transparency is essential for its incredibly complexe issue. Children often come into the carrot that ssi benefits they get them because the state agency applies on their behalf. They reimburse for a portion of the cost there is a concern among some statecontrolled use any of able to the ssi money they will not go to the trouble of applying for ssi for children. O we want to make sure children who would be eligible will be found eligible. If the Child Welfare agency does not do it they may end up leaving care without ssi benefit. In a different of a childhood ssi benefit with the parent, the parent could use a portion of the ssi benefit to care for the child. Not allowed to use for any state purposes we take all that you dont get anything. I think its a complex discussion thats worthy of rtdebate but. Certainly the committee should examine further would like to work with you more on how to come to an equal ground on that, thank you for. Last but certainly not least mr. Gomez. Thank you so much mr. Chairman. First let me thank all of you for being here. On this important topic. Mr. Hilton im proud to represent los angeles and washington. And thank you for sharing your story. I was getting them briefed him y staff about the hearing and about the issues they told me about your story. I was thinking about how much time you must have spent, i was thinking months not years for to hear the fact you are in this facility for two years is astonishing to me. I know some people in t califora Youth Authority for less time. At the same time they told me about how advocacy has been thoughtful and moving the ball forward. So thank you so s much. Im a new parent with a 22 month old toddler. I have the scars to prove it, physical scars from him trying to bite me once in a while. We are trying to do it more here. One of the things i did asserted a dads at caucus or dads or do more at home to raise children. But also for dads to do more in the halls of congress to fight for familyfriendly policies that help kids and policies everywhere. In your testimonyny ms. Hilton mentioned families need resources and support for the dont need to come into the Child Welfare system in the first place. Could you elaborate on the need for more federal resources for children . It is really important. A lot of things happening to these children is because they do not have the funds they are going to be going into the system because of that. Sometimes their families cannot afford to take care of them. It is just heartbreaking that because of that reason they would be taken away and then locked away in these facilities and being abused. I think it is important for that to be taken care of so they will never have to go into the system and be put to this abuse. I agree with you. A lot of what w we want to try o prevent is to prevent these children from entering into the foster system in the first place. No smart policies so people can take the time off to care for a kid. The child checks tax credit you pass a bipartisan bill thats not what we would have written as democrats but still ae billfold. We moved it forward. Affordable childcare because families to me are struggling. How do parents, how do we help parents make it a little bit easier on them to raise those kids . As a new dad i realize we do a lot now influence how a child is raised. Its almost like what you put in is what you get back. Making it easier for them, for the parent city that is crucial. We are going to keep fighting for those. One question, one issue on the foster care system when it comes to lgbtq youth. What i have read in certain reports is lgbtq youth represent about 30 of all children in the foster care system. 5 are identified as transgender. What can we do to support those children . Those are the ones that dont find a home. They are living on the street. And often put in terrible situations. Miss mansfield . Im not sure i have the answers that unfortunately but i will speak for my own experience growing up with foster siblings. My brother originally could not be placed because they identified hed should not be ata home environment because of his sexual orientation. No child should be labeled like that are not placed in a home environment because of that. It is a huge issue. I wish i had the solutions to it, i do not. I appreciate bring that up because thatt is something that comes up frequently. Both for children and foster care as well as the children who becomell adults and often become the incarcerated mothers i work with as well. Thank you. My time is up. Isaiah on solutions. We do believe there is a problem that has to be dealt with it. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you pretty want to thank each and every one of you for spending the time on this important hearing. Hearing your powerful testimony. Its definitely making a difference. Please be advised members had two weeks to submit written questions to be answered later in writing. The formal hearing record today but that the committee stands adjourned. 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