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United Methodist Family Services (UMS) supports HB 27, establishing a kinship foster care prevention program. This legislation will provide a much needed framework to promote increased kinship placements across the Commonwealth when a child cannot safely stay with their parent/guardians. It is imperative that we support relatives financially as well as establishing the legal framework for foster care prevention. This will provide access to relative support maintenance payments and the framework for local departments to make these placements more often, easily and in better support of families and also encourage legal permanency if returning to parent/guardians is not possible. Nationally, VA is out of step with kinship placements in foster care and this legislation will help move the Commonwealth in the right direction which will allow for better outcomes for our young people who have experienced abuse, neglect and trauma by allowing for stronger cultural connections, reducing placement disruptions and trauma.

With regard to HB27, I am in full support of this program. I am a local child welfare worker in the Richmond area. I work with kinship foster parents on a daily basis. For many families, the difference between foster care placement and custody transfer is simply the financial assistance afforded to them by becoming kinship foster parents. As you all are aware, there is a workforce crisis in child welfare. More kids entering foster care when many of these families and children can be served outside of foster care services save for the financial benefits contributes to higher caseloads. Children rarely leave foster care unscathed by any type of trauma. This program would reduce the foster care workers' workload, the unnecessary delays on permanency caused by Court timelines, and the undue trauma that youth in foster care face simply by being in the foster care system EVEN if they are placed with relatives. The impact statement for HB27 only captures the number of families currently served through In-Home services who would qualify for this plan. The Impact Statement fails to mention the hundreds to thousands of children and families who are in foster care with kinship foster parents who could otherwise be served through the Parental Child Safety Placement Program to avoid foster care altogether. That said, the impact of this program is much greater than the already stated data. Regarding HB 1313, Virginia's youth who aged out of foster care should be served for as long as the Commonwealth will allow. I am supportive of the age range for Fostering Futures be raised to 23. Many youth lose their footing between the ages of 18-20. By the time they are ready to return to Fostering Futures, they are closer to their 21st birthday and losing the support Fostering Futures offers them, and sometimes these youth are worse off than when they turned 18 in terms of readiness to support themselves. To have 2 additional years between 21 to 23 when they have experienced sometimes the lowest point in their lives and are truly ready to begin their adult life would make a profound difference in the outcomes for former foster youth. Please support this age amendment!

Since the pandemic, the foster care system has been in crisis after crisis. During the pandemic the children were sitting in isolation for 14 days at a time to confirm they were not carrying the corona virus. The isolation exasperated the mental health of those living and working in the foster care system. Virginia saw 65% of the foster homes close and end their license and we have not seen foster homes replace them. The Kinship Bills will open hundreds of homes for the youth suffering in foster care, and the best part is these are homes with individuals that know and love this child. Local DSS offices and placement facilities were short staffed and experiencing high rates of burnout. Youth were (and sometimes still are) living in temporary situations (such as DSS offices, Hotel rooms, shelters, etc.) until a foster home, group home or other permanent living situation can be found. Keep in mind that this was not just a Virginia problem, it was happening nationally. Since August many class action lawsuits have been brought against Child Protection Agencies for failing to provide quality services and meet requirements. California (Los Angelus County) is being sued for individuals in extended foster care being homeless. Organ, New York and Texas have similar actions around inadequate or unsafe housing arrangements. Virginia has an opportunity to reconcile the effects of the foster care crises by extending fostering futures to the age of 23. There are many concerns about the cost of extending foster care services. There is an opportunity to define the case management and qualifying expenses in the future. But these services are needed now, these young adults do not have good credit or someone to co-sign on a car loan, rental apartments or anything else. These youth have been living in crisis the last 4 years and preparing to do it without a safety net has been the last thing on the minds of social workers and youth themselves. The proof is in the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) results reflecting only 36% of youth received independent living skills support. Many of the localities are not meeting federal and state requirements for supporting individuals between the ages of 14 and 21 in teaching and preparing them for adulthood. When you are thinking about this big cost, I would like to remind you that 80% of individuals being trafficked are from foster care, one out of 5 individuals in jail/prisons are from foster care, 50% of individuals homeless are from foster care. The foster care system teaches individuals they do not need people to help them, they need systems and often spend a majority of their lives with economic assistance supporting them. The extension of fostering futures, more homes within families and support in getting vehicles can help increase the success rates of youth leaving foster care and decrease the cost to Virginia for the youth’s lifetimes. Please improve foster care by approving the kinship bills, extending support services till 23, and approving the budget to get them behind the wheel and off to a good start in their journey to becoming happy healthy adults!

Voices for Virginia's Children Strongly supports HB27 and HB 1313

Comments Document

The attached document contains comment on HB27 and HB1313 providing support and asking the House Appropriations Committee to pass and fund both of these bills, which will invest in the lives of Virginia's most vulnerable children and youth.

Kinship caregivers have the potential to significantly reduce the level of trauma experienced when a child is removed from their home. When someone takes a child into their home, their financial obligations increase. Current financial aid for kinship caregivers is very limited and all have extensive requirements. If passed, this will allow kinship caregivers to be eligible to receive the same payment as foster parents, removing a huge barrier.

Children's Home Society of Virginia supports establishing a Kinship as Foster Care Prevention program. Entering the foster care system is a traumatic event in any child's life. When there is an appropriate, safe, kinship placement option that would prevent a child from entering foster care, it would reduce the amount of trauma a child has to endure by ensuring permanent connections with that child's community are maintained and fostered. This can have lifelongB effects on a child. We thank Delegate Callsen for bringing this bill and hope you all will vote in support of it.

HB150 is an important provision for individuals who are homebound and not able to appear to continue their benefits. There are many families with disabled loved ones who qualify for SNAP benefits but they are unable to travel and leave their home. Once they qualify for these benefits the renewal process should not have to be in person. Please vote YES on HB150

make support accessible, cut out bureaucracy

My name is Michael Gordon. I am a recovering addict. My clean date is 06/06/2008. I writing this letter because it my duty as a health professional to bring to the table how important it is that we change the barrier crime law. I have spent countless hours and days working with other addicts who trying to find their pathway into recovery. The frontlines are thin because the people whom society deemed unworthy because of some past mistakes cannot work in the field that they could do the greatest good. I did not know when I received my sentence in 1990 for distribution of crack cocaine. I would be serving a life time sentence. Luck for me I don’t have a barrier crime, yet today after getting my GED, going to college and graduating with honors. I still can live in certain areas or have certain jobs. I went from the crack house to the White House and still that not enough for Virginia to forgive me of my past mistakes. We need more people who has made a deep commitment to change to share their experiences with others who are suffering!!

Re: HB241 - McQuinn There are increasing numbers of children residing in the Commonwealth surviving with medical complexity. Children with Medical Complexity (CMC) are increasing due to improved outcomes for premature infants and conditions that rely on technology outside of the hospital environment. Due to the shortage of home nursing in the Commonwealth, this leaves parents with the difficult decision of deciding if they can continue in the workforce to support their family or remain home to take care of their dependent child. Daycares are not set up to care for these children and lack licensed professionals that are able to provide tube feedings, oxygen, medication treatments and developmentally appropriate play and therapy services. Other states have taken this problem on in order to provide daycares that are licensed, thereby allowing parents to continue to be employed and rely less on social supports to ensure the well-being of their family.

As an adopted person residing in the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am asking you to please vote YES on HB550 which would restore the right of adult adopted persons who were born in Virginia to obtain their own original birth certificate without hindrances. Currently, the state law in VA denies adult adopted person born in VA the right to their own original birth certificate, a discriminatory practice that non-adopted people born in Virginia do not face. Adopted people should be treated equally under the law as non-adopted citizens. Denying original birth certificates access to a group of Virginia born adults is discriminatory and a human rights injustice. Please vote YES on HB550 showing that you believe Virginia born adoptees deserve the same dignity, respect, and equality as non-adopted persons born in the state of Virginia. Thanks.

Comments Document

Dear Chair Tran and Members of the Subcommittee:: The Capitol Coalition for Adoptee Rights is a coalition of state and national organizations seeking equality for all adoptees, with a focus on the District of Colombia, Maryland, and Virginia. The Coalition and its partner organizations support HB550, a bill that does the simple and overdue job of restoring to Virginia-born adult adopted people with the right and ability to request a copy of their own original birth records. We ask for a DO PASS recommendation from the subcommittee. Best regards CAPITOL COALITION FOR ADOPTEE RIGHTS /s/ Susie Stricker Spokesperson

Please support HB 550. Backing HB 550 will guarantee all Virginia-born people are granted equal rights to request, pay a nominal fee, and receive access to their own, original birth certificate. Current law denies adults who were born in Virginia and later adopted the same, unrestricted right to access their birth certificate that every other Virginia born person enjoys.

As a person born and adopted in Virginia, I strongly support HB550 and I am asking for you to vote favorably when it comes before you in the subcommittee. I was told by an attorney that I would need to petition a court in Richmond in order to get my original birth certificate, and that the petition would likely be denied. This is unfair, when any other adult born in Virginia can receive their (original) birth certificate for a nominal fee. I am 62 years old but the state of Virginia treats me like a non-adult in this regard. This issue is important enough to me that I am volunteering with Virginia Adoptee Rights Alliance. I would appear in person but I am out of the country, as it happens. I am taking time out of my vacation abroad to write this message. Thank you.

Comments Document

My name is Jamie, however in 1979, I was born as Hope Marie, in Norfolk, VA. I was relinquished for an adoption, which was finalized when I was 6 months old. In accordance with Virginia code, at the finalization of my adoption, the law required that my original birth certificate, which recorded the facts of my birth, to be taken from me and sealed. This was done solely due to the fact that I was adopted. Not relinquished, but adopted. My birth certificate was not sealed at the request of my birth mother. It was not even an option she was given, because neither termination of parental rights documents or Virginia law offer or promise anonymity to a parent from their own offspring, since it is not a guarantee that would be legally possible. She did not want my identity or hers to be kept from me, instead that was forced upon us by the law. Obtaining one’s own birth record is a basic right that all other groups of people have except adopted persons, and a right that Virginia-born adopted persons had prior to 1972. Virginia HB550 does one simple thing - give adult adopted persons the unrestricted right to obtain their own original birth certificate. Restoring this right is essential to ensuring equality for all adult adopted persons and I ask for your favorable report of this bill.

Comments Document

We support HB 550 as written; a “clean bill” with no restrictions to access by Virginia-born adoptees. *Current Virginia law severely limits adopted people from obtaining their OBCs and other adoption information. *HB550 does away with this very limited current legal process and restores the right of all Virginia-born adopted people to obtain their OBCs upon request at the age of 18 with no restrictions or conditions. The adoptee would simply fill out a form and submit it directly to the appropriate department for a nominal fee. *HB550 is not about search and reunion, though search and reunion can happen The bill is about civil rights. *We often hear the term “balance of rights” in the OBC debate. There is no “balance of rights” here. Everyone born in Virginia except those who are adopted, have an unquestioned right to obtain their own birth certificate upon request and a nominal fee. The current sealed records practice confers upon the documents and the adopted people to whom they pertain, some kind of personal and political stigma. *HB550 is about adoptee rights only. Rights and interests are unequal. *There is no evidence in any state that records were sealed to “protect” the reputation or “privacy” of biological parents who relinquished children for adoption. (*Identifying information about surrendering parents often appears in court documents given to adoptive parents who can at any point give that information to the adopted person. (In some states adoptive parents, at the time of the adoption order, can petition the court to keep the record open.) The names of surrendering parents are published in legal ads. Courts can open “sealed records” for “good cause” without birthparent consent or even knowledge. Critically, the OBC is sealed at the time of adoption finalization, not surrender. If a child is not adopted, the record is never sealed. If a child is adopted, but the adoption is overturned or disrupted, the OBC is unsealed. Please remember that the OBCs of persons with established relationships with biological parents as in stepparent and foster adoptions are also sealed.

Comments Document

Letter in support of HB550, including illustrations about how current Virginia law works to incentivize the use of DNA and how HB550 would simplify that process and make it more private and discreet.

Comments Document

Honorable Delegates of the HHS Social Services Subcommittee, Greetings to you and attached please find an AAC support memo for HB550, which will restore unrestricted access to original birth certificates for all Virginia adult adopted persons. We are very happy to be working alongside our partner advocates at the Capitol Coalition for Adoptee Rights (CCAR) to advance this vital human and civil rights imperative. Hope this helps, with tremendous thanks for all efforts to advance adoptee equality in the Old Dominion State. Regards, Tim. Tim Monti-Wohlpart American Adoption Congress National Legislative Chair