The Georgia Senate on Thursday passed legislation that aims to require judges to prioritize cases involving children in foster care and asks juvenile courts to better track those cases.
Senate Bill 335 also will allow the state Division of Family and Children Services to vary the amount of time of annual training that foster parents are required to undergo based on their experience level. Currently, all foster parents must take 15 hours of training each year.
Newnan Republican state Rep. Matt Brass, the bill's sponsor, said the legislation is a step toward improving the state's foster care system.
“We’ve got over 12,000 kids in foster care and their graduation rate is just over 10%. That’s not good,” Brass said. “We’ve got to do better as a state. This bill helps get us in that direction.”
The legislation aims to have judges prioritize foster care-related cases “over all other civil and criminal hearings.” Juvenile courts also would be required to document the timeline as cases move through the system.
State law requires foster care cases follow a certain timeline — for example, a preliminary hearing must be held within 72 hours of a child being removed from an unsafe home — but Brass said the deadlines aren’t tracked.
The bill also would allow children in foster care and those families who have them in their care to enter state parks for free. State park entry fees are usually $5.
The measure passed 53-1. State Sen. Zahra Karinshak, a Duluth Democrat, voted against the measure, who said she was concerned foster parents wouldn't receive adequate training.
“I'm fully supportive of the intent behind this measure, and hope that the House will fix this issue so that our foster children are not endangered by inadequately trained foster parents,” she said.
While the legislation did not originate in the governor's office, Brass said it is another way to move toward Gov. Brian Kemp's goal of overhauling the state's foster care system.
Kemp's proposed changes include increasing the tax credit for adoptions out of the state foster care system, dropping the age for adoptive parents from 25 to 21 and increase the time foster parents can leave children in foster care with a babysitter from 48 to 72 hours.
Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who presides over the Senate, said this was the first step in making Georgia the “No. 1 place to be a foster child.”
“I think what you're what you're sensing is a tremendous amount of momentum, out of this building, really trying to look for opportunities to modernize and support our foster care programs in a meaningful way,” he said.
The legislation now heads to the House for its consideration.
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