Proposal to remove foster care placement barriers advances

A bill intended to remove obstacles to foster care placement advanced from general file April 5.

Lincoln Sen. Colby Coash, sponsor of LB265, said he hopes the bill will facilitate placement in homes where at least one caretaker is known to the foster child.

Coash said relatives and family friends of children entering the foster care system often are interested in assisting a particular child but may not be able to invest the time and effort required to gain formal licensure as a foster care provider.

He said the state’s top priority should be reducing the amount of disruption in vulnerable children’s lives.

“It’s traumatic enough to pull a kid out of a home,” Coash said, “much less to put that child in a home full of strangers.”

Currently, all foster homes in Nebraska must be licensed. LB265 would exempt kinship and relative homes from the licensure requirement. A kinship home is defined in the bill as one in which a primary caretaker previously has lived with or had significant contact with the child being placed.

A Health and Human Services Committee amendment, adopted 28-0, specifies that, rather than simply having had significant contact with the child being placed, an individual must be a trusted adult with a pre-existing, significant relationship with the child in order to qualify as a kinship placement.

The amendment also adds language requiring the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to promulgate rules and regulations for licenses, waivers, variances and approval of foster families – including relative and kinship homes – and specifies that approval is required prior to placement in a nonlicensed relative or kinship home.

Under the bill, kinship and relative homes would be subject to criminal background checks of all adult residents and a home visit to ensure adequate housing. In addition, the bill would allow DHHS to issue a waiver for any nonsafety licensing standard for a kinship or relative home seeking licensure.

“We are not waiving any requirement that keeps the child safe,” Coash said.

LB265 advanced to select file on a 31-0 vote.