The Legislative Task Force on Child Protection had their meeting this past week before the opening of the Legislature on January 14th, 2025. Many groups gave presentations to the Task Force; Safe Passage for Children attended the meeting to watch these presentations.
There was an update on the fiscal analysis bill from the last legislative session. It was reported that creating a map of child welfare funding streams in Minnesota would make accessing those funds easier and more equitable. We agree and hope to support such legislation. Other states who have completed this process have seen significant savings.
One individual was in favor of decreasing the amount of permanent barrier crimes for kin-foster guardians and presented a hypothetical situation in which a possible kin-foster guardian was convicted for first degree assault at 18 years old and applied to be a foster guardian in the future. They stated that, because of this assault, this kin would be rejected from being a foster parent and called for a change of these currently permanent barrier crimes to 5-year only barrier crimes.
Safe Passage disagrees with this stance.
Limiting the violent crimes that are a permanent barrier for fostering would put children at risk for further harm. Children who have already been through trauma and removed from their homes shouldn’t be placed with people who have committed violent crimes.
We will continue to monitor these and other issues before, during, and after the legislative session because child safety should be the state’s top priority.