Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL-7) joined Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL-16) in introducing the bipartisan Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act (H.R. 9076). This bill would reauthorize Title IV-B of the Social Security Act to strengthen child welfare services and expand the availability of prevention services. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means, which held a hearing on the legislation on July 24, following a year-long review of child welfare programs. The legislation mandates early intervention to keep families intact when possible and reduce the need for foster care. It expands access for tribal communities and provides support systems for the 2.5 million grandparents and relatives serving as kinship caregivers. It also strengthens post-adoption services.
The bill passed unanimously out of the Ways and Means Committee. Rep. LaHood hailed the bill’s bipartisan nature. “Nineteen (19) members of the committee, from both sides of the aisle, introduced bills to improve [Title] IV-B, and those reforms are the foundation of what we are marking up today,” he stated during the hearing. “This is how Congress should work. This is the process of functional governing.” He also thanked Rep. Davis for highlighting the unique challenges faced by children with incarcerated parents.
“I am proud to partner with Rep. Darin LaHood to lead H.R. 9076, which would create federal demonstration grants that promote meaningful relationships between foster youth and their incarcerated parents,” Rep. Davis stated. “Maintaining quality relationships supports the child’s and parent’s well-being and reunification. These relationships are especially important to foster youth who experience the trauma of separation from family members and communities that they know. I thank CRISP for focusing attention on the need to keep youth connected to their incarcerated parents and for its support of the bill.”
CRISP has a long relationship with Rep. Davis’s office. While at Howard University, at the request of his former Chief of Staff Richard Boykin, I served on the planning committee for the congressman’s 2003 State of the Black Male conference in exchange for his office hosting Howard University School of Social Work students. Rep. Davis was an original member of the Social Work Caucus. CRISP legislative Director Angelique Day worked in his office during the 2016-17 academic year through a fellowship awarded by the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Day organized a CRISP congressional briefing on children with incarcerated parents on January 11, 2024, which centered on research by Dr. Tamarie Willis, an SRCD Executive Branch Policy Fellow in the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE). “This bill is so important because children in care whose parents are incarcerated are among the most vulnerable,” Dr. Willis offered. “It recognizes the importance of the parent-child relationship in development despite the physical and emotional separation as a result of child welfare and legal system involvement. The child and the parent will benefit greatly from any efforts to maintain and strengthen that relationship.”
The January briefing featured panelists, including Dr. Carrie Pettus, the founder and CEO of Wellbeing and Equity Innovations, Inc., which focuses on helping incarcerated individuals successfully reintegrate back into families and communities. She was the longtime co-lead of the Grand Challenges for Social Work Promote Smart Decarceration network and now chairs the Executive Committee for all Grand Challenges. “My work recognizes the importance of trauma in the lives of many who wind up behind bars,” Dr. Pettus stated. “In these days of a hyperpolarized Congress, it is heartening to see legislators from both sides of the aisle put aside their differences to enhance the lives of these vulnerable children. Family separation is among the most traumatic experiences for a child.”
“This is another example of why it is so important for social workers to be engaged in legislative settings at all levels of government,” Dr. Day concluded. “Former Congresswoman Karen Bass, now Mayor Bass, was the catalyst for a transformational wave in foster care when she arrived in Congress in 2011 and immediately created the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth. There is much work to do, and we are getting life-changing bills introduced and eventually passed into law.” The January briefing was one of several congressional briefings CRISP organized to support foster care legislation. On March 1, 2022, CRISP joined Rep. Bass’s office, the National Foster Youth Initiative (NFYI), a nonprofit she created to enhance the voices of foster youth, and Partners for Our Youth to sponsor a briefing to advance legislation promoting kinship licensure. On September 20, 2022, CRISP held a briefing on legislation to counter attempts to have the Supreme Court declare the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) unconstitutional. Both issues were addressed in H.R. 9076. Other briefings focused on alternative mental health treatments, expanding access to driving, and the reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA).