As a former foster mother, I would not want my address given out to biological parents for the safety of my home, my family, and for my foster children. Some of these parents have criminal records, felonies, use drugs, and are not able to think logically all the time. We should protect foster parents by not providing addresses, phone numbers, and other personal information to the biological families.

Foster parents provide a tremendous service to children in need. It is unnecessary for the biological parents to have access to personal information such as phone number and address of the foster family. This potentially puts the family and the foster child in danger. Nobody should have to worry about their personal safety.

I am writing to support foster family privacy. The safety of the children and anyone in the foster family is at risk if personal information such as addresses become known to biological parents. As a former foster parent and current adoptive parent, I have learned that safety and consistency are two of the most important aspects in providing effective care. If this information were to become known to the biological parents, it would severely impact both of the above.

Please support foster parents rights to privacy. In situations where the biological parent has had the children removed from their custody and placed into a foster family, the foster family's address and phone number are not necessary for the educational decision making that the biological parent still has access to. Biological parents access to the foster family is decided upon by the social workers on the case and access should not be freely given through something as crucial to a child's education as a standard IEP meeting report. Protecting personal information such as phone number and address is crucial to supporting foster family's ability to provide a stable, safe household for the foster youth. This protection does not hinder the non-custodial biological parent who still has educational decision power, it can only help the child succeed.

I am writing in support of HB 2226. My goddaughter’s parents, we’ll call them the Fosters, became foster parents in 2023. The biological parents of their foster children retained educational rights. The Fosters were thrilled that their foster children’s biological parents wanted to remain involved in their children’s education while working towards reunification. However, it was in the best interest and safety of the Fosters, their daughter (my goddaughter), and their foster children to keep their address and personal phone numbers private from the biological parents. But the way the law is written, it was totally legal for the public school to share the educational file of the foster children with their biological parents WITHOUT redacting the address of the home they were living in with the Fosters. In fact, the school interpreted the law in such a way that they believed redacting that address to be ILLEGAL, because it is part of the educational record, which the biological parents had the legal rights to. The ONLY info the Fosters did not want the biologically parents to see was their address and phone numbers. But the school couldn’t or wouldn’t redact it. The Fosters were lucky. They had a good relationship with their foster children’s biological family and remained safe. But what if they didn’t? What if the biological parents had, out of desperation, broken into their home to get their children back before the end of their placement in foster care? What if my 6 year old goddaughter had been harmed because the school didn’t redact her address from her foster siblings’ educational record? HB2226 would protect foster families, their children, and children in foster care from potential danger by keeping their physical address out of the hands of biological parents. I urge you to pass HB2226 to keep fostering safe. We need MORE foster parents. If we expect people to step up to the grueling and selfless job of becoming foster parents, we MUST do everything in our power to make fostering SAFE. Again, I urge you to pass HB2226.