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For Immediate Release
September 17, 1998

White Joins Call for Quick Action on Child Welfare and Adoption Law Reforms

Harrisburg -- Spurred by the beating deaths of two Pennsylvania children, state Sen. Mary Jo White (R-21) and fellow lawmakers joined Ridge administration officials today to unveil major reforms to strengthen Pennsylvania’s child welfare system and prevent future tragedies.

Among those attending the Harrisburg news conference to explain the measures were White, Senate President Pro Tempore Robert C. Jubelirer, Secretary of Public Welfare Feather O. Houstoun and Jim Anderson of the Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission.

The bills are being introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate to close gaps in the system that put children at risk and to reform the adoption system to give children the advantage of a permanent and safe home. The measures will be a top legislative priority when the General Assembly reconvenes later this month.

The reforms would change the state’s adoption laws to provide more children with a safe and permanent home. The changes are needed to bring the state into compliance with the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. Pennsylvania must meet compliance by November 30 or face the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for 1999.

White, who is spearheading the adoption changes in the Senate, said that in too many cases, children now spend years in foster care or are shuttled from their own home, to a temporary setting, and back again.

"Foster care was meant to be a temporary situation, but for many youngsters it has been a place to wait out their childhood," White said. " In moving this bill forward, the administration is fulfilling a federal requirement and, most importantly, bringing Pennsylvania nearer to a goal that is close to all of our hearts --providing safe and permanent homes for children."

Under the adoption reform measures:

• County agencies could classify a child as "abandoned" after three months if the parents are not known or after six months if the parents have not maintained contact with the child.
• Courts would consider drug and alcohol abuse when determining whether a child should be placed in another setting.
• Permanency hearings would have to be held within six months after a child had been removed from the home. Hearings would have to be held every six months until the child is returned home or permanently placed in another family.

"To read about the circumstances of abuse, to see the pictures of what happens when the system fails kids, is as wrenching and angering as anything in our experience," Jubelirer said. "We have a responsibility to do whatever is possible to prevent another Ashley Decker or Maxwell Fisher case of deadly abuse."

Rep. Katie True (R-Lancaster), who is leading House action on the reform measures, said the changes are aimed at placing the highest priority on protecting the safety and well-being of children, rather than focusing solely on keeping families together.

"We are moving forward aggressively to make much-needed changes in our child protective law," True said. "We are beginning to get the job done for the best interests of the children."

The child welfare reforms also focus on improving communication and cooperation among agencies, so that cases of abuse are identified early, before the violence escalates and children are endangered. The changes would:

• Make it easier for county officials to share confidential reports involving suspected cases of child abuse where the suspected abuser moves from one county to another.
• Require county agencies to retain reports of suspected child abuse for at least one year so they are available for use in criminal causes.
• Allow district attorneys to access confidential child abuse reports involving serious physical injury. Under current law, the report is accessible in cases involving sexual abuse, sexual exploitation or serious bodily injury.
• Prohibit those convicted of felony drug offenses from working as child services employees or serving as an adoptive parent.
• Provide additional training for child worker supervisors and require high-risk children to be visited and monitored more frequently.
• Open death reports so problems in the system can be identified and addressed.

White said the legislature needs to act quickly on the proposed child welfare reform measures.

"Pennsylvania has a federally imposed deadline on some of the adoption reform measures; we should impose a moral deadline on ourselves to change the law to implement the other provisions to identify and protect abused children. Every day that we wait is a day that some children continue to be at risk," White said.

CONTACT: Leigh Ramsey (717) 787-9684