Arizona’s largest county is taking action to support vulnerable youth.
Earlier this month, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved $150,000 for students who are coming out of foster care. The government funding will go to HopeTech, which according to the release from the County, “is the first program of its kind in Arizona, combining housing and support services for foster youth with career training at a Career Technical Education District (CTED) campus.”
HopeTech has been constructed at East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT). It is a residence hall with 64 beds.
“Investing in our young people as they transition out of foster care is an investment in the future of our communities,” said Vice Chairman Thomas Galvin, who represents District 2 on the Board of Supervisors. “Workforce training provides them with important, economically viable skills, and the opportunity to build a stable, successful life.”
“The generous support from Maricopa County is more than a financial gift,” said EVIT Superintendent Dr. Chad Wilson. “It provides students with additional resources and support needed to step confidently into adulthood and onto a pathway towards independence and prosperity. We are deeply grateful for this investment into these students’ futures.”
Maricopa County’s release reveals that the county “will provide funding to EVIT for furniture and appliances, transportation items to allow greater ease of accessing the 65+ acre property and transporting youth to appointments and trainings, and recreational courts and equipment to provide youth with opportunities for physical activities.”
The communication from the County shares that “officials are hopeful that this program can serve as a model to be replicated in other CTEDs across the state and technical schools nationwide.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Republican Rep. David Schweikert criticized adoption agencies for predatory practices during a hearing this week featuring celebrity Paris Hilton, founder and CEO of 11:11 Media.
Schweikert came to the conclusion through his experience adopting his two-year-old son, the brother of the little girl they’d adopted before him. According to Schweikert’s remarks during Wednesday’s Ways and Means Committee hearing, adoption agencies impose prohibitively expensive adoption fees — even if the mother had just given birth and they had no role in the pregnancy or birth up to that moment, as was in his case.
“Two years ago this week, all of a sudden I’m getting text messages from my office, saying there’s a social worker who needs me to call her. Okay. I immediately assume I have a family member who needs bail money. I call the social worker and the first words out of her mouth were, ‘Are you going to come pick it up?’ Pick up what? Apparently the birth mother of the little girl we had adopted six years earlier had walked into the hospital, no prenatal care, substance abuse, and had a little boy. The little boy was very small, and going through withdrawals. […] One of the greatest things that’s ever happened in our lives. But before we were able to walk out of that hospital with him, turns out an adoption agency worker had gotten the birth mother to sign a piece of paper. Now remember, the birth mother had said, ‘Hey, the Schweikerts had adopted my little girl. This is the brother, wouldn’t that be nice if they could be together?’ We were told we had 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 adoption services. How does a middle class family adopt with these types of costs?”
Schweikert reflected on his experience to compare with Hilton’s testimony, which detailed her allegations of inhumane treatment at a congregate-care facility. The congressman concluded that the child welfare system suffers from financial greed.
“Mrs. Hilton actually said something that was brilliant. It’s about the money,” said Schweikert.
Yesterday, @ParisHilton bravely shared her traumatizing experience at a congregate-care facility with the Ways & Means Committee.
Having such a prominent voice express the flaws within the child welfare system is invaluable. pic.twitter.com/6RQkqlRteE
Hilton recounted how she was taken to a youth residential treatment facility at 16 years old. She testified that, under “troubled teen” programs promising “healing, growth, and support,” she had actually faced two years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
Hilton testified she was force-fed medications, sexually abused by staff, violently restrained, dragged down hallways, stripped naked, forced in solitary confinement frequently, and deprived of views of the outside world.
“My parents were completely deceived, lied to, and manipulated by this for-profit industry about the inhumane treatment I was experiencing,” said Hilton. “Can you only imagine the experience for youth who are placed by the state and don’t have people regularly checking in on them?”
As reason for her testimony, Hilton advocated for the reauthorization of Title IV-B, a Social Security Act provision that created two child welfare programs with federal funding under two parts. Part 1 enacted Child Welfare Services while Part 2 enacted Promoting Safe and Stable Families.
Hilton also advocated for the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act and again declared support for the Senate Finance Committee’s “Warehouses of Neglect” report.
This latest hearing of the Ways and Means Committee was the latest in a long string of hearings on the subject, more than any in the last eight congressional systems combined per the committee. The committee has been conducting a thorough review of Title IV-B over the past year.
Committee Chairman Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican, outlined a number of pervasive issues with the child welfare system: inadequate kinship care support, high social worker turnover, excessive bureaucratic red tape, slow hearings and lack of lawyer access for families, remaining barriers for Native American tribal families, high rates of mental health issues in older foster youth, and discrimination rather than support for impoverished families.
Watch Wednesday’s full hearing below:
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The state’s two main foster care court advocacy groups are requesting more volunteers to assist and advocate for children in the foster care system.
In a press release issued on Wednesday — also recognized as National Adoption Day — the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) expressed a need for volunteers in all 15 counties to serve with them or the Foster Care Review Board (FCRB).
CASA and the FCRB provide aid to the approximately 10,000 children in the state’s foster care system. CASA Program Manager Charlie Gray stressed in a press release that expertise isn’t necessary for volunteering — just compassion.
“You do not need to be steeped in child welfare experience or knowledge,” said Gray. “You only need to have a compassion to help guide a child through one of the most emotionally difficult experiences they will have in their life.”
Children in the state’s foster system need the support and care of their community more than ever: as we reported in August, a recent audit of the Arizona Department of Child Services found that caseworkers were failing the children in their charge by neglecting to provide all necessary documents for their cases and skipping case review meetings.
The auditor general found that these shortcomings by DCS caseworkers not only hindered children’s cases but compromised the foster care system by diminishing trust from the Administrative Office of the Courts and the local foster care review boards tasked with completing foster children’s cases.
Arizona community members may make up for DCS shortcomings by providing advocacy, support, and attentive care to the children and their cases.
CASA volunteers visit and build a relationship with a child as well as the people involved in their case. These volunteers also serve as advocates for the child’s best interests in court by issuing recommendations, while working alongside others involved with that child. That may include the child’s teachers, foster family, parents, and service providers. These volunteers serve as a stable, consistent presence for the child.
“A CASA volunteer stays with the child throughout the entire case and is often the one consistent adult throughout the court process,” stated CASA.
Comparatively, FCRB volunteers serve on a five-member panel that meets virtually once a month to review children’s foster care cases. The goal of the volunteers is to become acquainted with the same cases, recognize the needs of a child and their family, and achieve permanency.
Those interested in volunteering must be at least 21 years of age, able to pass a fingerprint background check, and able to participate in an introductory program training. Those desiring to be CASA volunteers may apply here; those interested in applying to be FCRB volunteers may apply here.
There are plenty of other volunteer opportunities to assist the court system, and thereby make it easier for those going through it. CASA shared that the Arizona Supreme Court also needs volunteers for its 30 standing committees and commissions.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
In a quicker turnaround than anticipated, a bill to prohibit the state from discriminating against the religious or personal beliefs of potential adoptive or foster parents or individuals who advertise, provide, or facilitate adoption or foster services, SB1399, passed the Senate 16-11 along party lines on Wednesday. The bill now advances to the House for consideration. The vote on SB1399 occurred quickly; the Senate announced Monday that it would do the third reading of the bill sometime the following week.
Only two Democrats spoke out on the floor in opposition to the bill during final voting. They claimed that the bill would not only fix a nonexistent problem, but would create a slew of problems down the road.
State Senator Stephanie Stahl Hamilton (D-Tucson) argued there wasn’t a need for the bill because no state agencies discriminate against individuals hoping to adopt or foster based on their religious beliefs. Stahl Hamilton added that the Department of Child Services (DCS) already has a system in place considering religious preferences when matching families with foster children. On another note, Stahl Hamilton said that this legislation allowed the government to meddle with religious beliefs.
Likewise, State Senator Rosanna Gabaldon (D-Sahuarita) emphasized that while the freedom of religion is important and already protected by the U.S. Constitution, this bill would go against what it aimed to achieve. She claimed it would deny children homes based on someone’s political and religious views.
During the Committee of the Whole (COW) reading of the bill on Monday, State Senator Raquel Terán (D-Phoenix) called the legislation “alarming” and a form of discrimination.
Secular and LGBTQ activists opposed the bill because it would enable Christian agencies to turn away non-Christian and LGBTQ foster or adoptive applicants.
The AZ Senate is poised to vote on a bill that will let state funded foster care agencies deny prospective LGBTQ+ parents. This blatant discrimination harms children by limiting family homes available. ☎️ your AZ Senator to oppose SB1399 today: https://t.co/Wc9qYD4MNO
Welp, the "pro-life" party just passed #SB1399 out of committee. This bill would allow religious foster & adoption agencies to discriminate against parents based on their religion. #Arizona#AZLeg#AZSenate#HandmaidsTale#BlessedBe
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Arizona Policy Director Darrell Hill claimed that the bill would enable antisemitism.
Nancy Barto, 1 of 2 Senators to stand with Rogers after her hateful comments, is the sponsor of #SB1399, a bill that would allow child welfare agencies to discriminate against Jewish families. The AZ senate must reject antisemitism and hate. Tell your Senator to oppose #SB1399. https://t.co/44uVbCGS2l
Acts of religious discrimination were classified as altering the tax treatment of a person, including assessing penalties and refusing tax exemptions; disallowing or denying a tax deduction for charitable donations; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating, or materially altering the terms or conditions of a state grant, contract, subcontract, cooperative agreement, guarantee, loan, scholarship or other similar benefit from or to a person; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating or adversely altering the terms or conditions of or denying any entitlement or benefit under a state benefit program from or to a person; imposing, levying or assessing a monetary fine, fee, penalty, damages or an injunction; withholding, reducing, excluding, terminating, materially altering the terms or conditions of or denying license, certification, accreditation, custody award or agreement, diploma, grade, recognition or other similar benefit, position or status from or to a person; and refusing to hire or promote, forcing to resign, fire, demote, sanction, discipline, adversely alter the terms or conditions of employment, retaliate or take other adverse employment action against a person employed or commissioned by the state government.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Both the House Health and Human Services Committee and the House Appropriations Committee approved a bill to ensure that Arizona’s kinship families, extended families caring for children that would otherwise face placement in the foster care system, have the financial means to take care of their children. Kinship families care for 46 percent of the children in the Department of Child Safety (DCS) system, yet receive $75 a month currently if they remain unlicensed while the average foster family receives over $700 a month irrespective of income. HB2274 would raise that amount to $300, appropriating $24.2 million from the state’s general fund next year. Kinship families wouldn’t be required to submit an application to receive their stipend.
State Representative Jeff Weninger (R-Chandler) introduced HB2274 in response to Governor Doug Ducey’s declaration to increase foster care family resources in his State of the State address last month. Ducey insisted that kinship families should receive the same help as any other family willing to care for a child.
“It can be better for the child, and often, cheaper for the state because historically, they haven’t been treated as foster families. More than 6,000 children in Arizona live in these homes, all the evidence you need that you can’t put a price tag on love,” said Ducey. “So moving forward, these loving extended family members should have the same resources as any other foster family. We’ll make sure of that this year.”
On Ducey’s point of saving the state money: the governor’s office reported during Wednesday’s House Appropriations meeting that the average cost of congregate care was $150 daily, or $5,000 a month.
Ducey applauded the two committees’ bipartisan passage of HB2274 in a press release, noting that kinship families would further receive a helping hand from the Department of Child Safety (DCS). DCS pledged to review its procedures to expedite kinship caregiver licensing. A change from DCS would enable kinship families to receive as much financial support as other foster families.
Only State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) voted against the bill, in the House Appropriations Committee. State Representative Gail Griffin (R-Hereford) passed on her vote.
The stipend would offset the effects families feel from the current inflation plaguing the Biden Administration.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
