On Tuesday, the state's Child Welfare Legislative Oversight Panel unanimously endorsed a bill that will overturn an unconscionable law that bans emergency placement of abused and neglected children with loving relatives, and sends them to shelters instead.
The ban resulted from an erroneous reading of the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection Act of 2006 by the Utah Division of Child and Family Services. Division officials not only misinterpreted the federal law, but successfully lobbied for a corresponding change in Utah law with a state Legislature that was all too eager to comply. The ban was approved last winter by lawmakers and has been in effect since May.
As a result, children removed from homes due to abuse or neglect are placed in shelters - sometimes for two months or more - while waiting for anxious relatives to clear FBI fingerprint checks. In fiscal 2007, 2,193 Utah youths were removed from their homes due to neglect, abuse or abandonment, and in 80 percent of those cases, relatives had inquired about kinship placements. But thanks to a bumbling bureaucracy, the children were temporarily housed with strangers.
While shelters are a necessary part of the landscape, and ours do a good job of caring for children in need, there's no substitute for the familiar faces and loving arms of relatives during this traumatic part of children's lives. When a relative is ready and willing to take in a child, that wish should be granted without undue delay.
The new bill, sponsored by Rep. Wayne Harper, R-West Jordan, would accomplish that. The legislation would enable DCFS to place a child with a non-custodial parent or other relative after routine criminal background checks and child abuse database screenings, a process accomplished in a matter of minutes. And the children, who have already been abused or neglected, would be back with loved ones.
Harper's proposal will go before the full Legislature in January. If lawmakers have a heart, and an ounce of common sense, they will pass it quickly, and make it effective immediately. It's time to undo the damage they've done.
