Representative Kelly Townsend, of Mesa, Arizona, hopes to reform DCS. To do so, she is filing three foster care bills in the hopes that big changes will be made:

  1. STATE WARDS, MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION PROHIBITION, bill 2049 is to protect foster children from receiving any medication that hasn’t been approved by the FDA; protect foster children against any type of medical or genetic experimentation.
  2. SUPERVISOR APPROVAL TO REMOVE CHILD FROM HOME, bill 2047 would require social workers to receive approval before a child can be taken from their home. Because of the belief that some children are removed from a home prematurely, and it can take up to a year for families to get a trial to have their children returned to them, Representative Townsend is hoping this bill will prevent such things.
  3. FOSTER CHILDREN NOT TO BE CONSIDERED ABUSED, NEGLECTED OR DEPENDENT BASED ON THE TREATMENTS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND GOOD FAITH, bill 2283 would allow the parent, guardian, or custodian of the child to get a second medical opinion before the child is considered abused or neglected and removed from the home.

While there is value in each of these foster care bills, opponents are concerned that some of these would allow for children in abusive situations to remain unnecessarily, thereby creating even more of an unsafe environment for them.

The full article about these bills may be read here.