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Great News for SB 163!

After over one year of advocacy on the SB 163 foster care bill and specifically on removal of the “Grendell amendment” on notification of foster children, the General Assembly has finally passed SB 163 without language that would subject foster children to expanded community notification requirements. On April 29, 2008, the Ohio Senate concurred on the changes the House made to SB 163, in effect agreeing to remove the Grendell amendment from the bill.

Since December 2006, the staff at OACCA and our member agencies have worked with Senator Tom Niehaus (the bill’s sponsor), Senator Gary Cates (the companion bill sponsor), Representative Courtney Combs, and Representative Jeff Wagner as members of their interested-party legislative committee to develop recommendations to reform the state foster care system. The committee consisted of staff from associations like ours, local foster care agencies, county children’s service agencies, foster parents, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the Attorney General’s office, legislative staff, and of course Senator Niehaus and his colleagues. As a result of the inclusive workgroup that was formed to craft the bill, SB 163 has many positive components that will improve the state foster care system. One of the most important effects of the bill is that it will allow private agencies, county children services agencies, and law enforcement to have better access to more information and improves their ability to share it.

The bill also directs the Ohio BCII to establish and maintain a Retained Applicant Fingerprint Database which will notify agencies when a current foster parent is convicted of offenses that would preclude them from being certified as a foster parent. The bill provides that, as part of the initial background check for prospective foster parents, FBI checks are required along with the BCII checks. As part of this screening, any adult who resides with the prospective foster caregiver must also be screened prior to receiving a foster home certificate. Moreover, the bill requires that all prospective foster parents disclose any foster care licensure actions (discipline or revocation) that they experienced in any other state. If their license was revoked in another state, they are not eligible to become foster parents in Ohio

OACCA would like to thank its member agencies and partnering organizations that helped SB 163 pass without language that would be harmful to foster children, including: Alliance of Child Caring Service Providers, Franklin County Children’s Services, Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, NAMI-Ohio, Coalition for Healthy Communities, Voices for Ohio’s Children, Ohio Federation for Children’s Mental Health, Mental Health America of Franklin County, Ohio Family Care Association, PCSAO, ODJFS, Juvenile Justice Coalition – Ohio, and Foster Care Alumni of America - Ohio.

We look forward to Governor Strickland signing SB 163 into law, which will also mark the end of the foster care legislative reform initiative (SB 163 and HB 214), which began in 2006.

For more information, visit www.oacca.org.