This year’s legislative output included a bill initiated by Foster Advocates that will ensure cost-free attendance for foster youth at state colleges, universities, and other participating schools. This will cover expenses like travel and books that have prevented even youth with full scholarships from attending college.
The Institute to Transform Child Protection led an effort, supported by Safe Passage, to eliminate many past felonies as bars to foster care licensure, and to develop instead a process for assessing applicants based on their current ability to foster children.
While there was no new funding for early learning scholarships, a $500 million increase was approved for child care, bringing Minnesota from 25% to 40% of the federal reimbursement standard. Targeted home visiting appropriations also increased by $4.5 million.
Overall it was a year of mostly ‘wins’ for human services and child welfare.
Listen to this week’s blog post, as well as in-depth commentary, on this week’s podcast.