Latest news with #HouseBill612
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
A sweeping child welfare and foster care bill wins NC Senate committee approval
Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Nash) discusses a child welfare bill (Photo: Lynn Bonner) An expansive bill overhauling the child welfare system that aims to increase stability for children in foster care won approval from a Senate committee on Thursday. House Bill 612 provides for increased oversight of local child welfare office decisions by the state Department of Health and Human Services. It sets out timeframes for court hearings on plans to move children in foster care to permanent homes. Courts would be allowed to authorize post-adoption contact agreements between biological and adoptive parents. Legislators have discussed comprehensive changes to child welfare and foster care laws for years. 'It's a long time coming,' Rep. Allen Chesser (R-Nash), one of the bill sponsors, told the Senate Health Committee during a Wednesday hearing. 'I think it's one of the most bipartisan issues we have.' When they discussed the bill Wednesday, the Senate committee members heard concerns from a lawyer and adoptive parents that the bill would discourage infant adoptions. The bill gives a biological father up to three months after a child's birth, when he is not married to the child's mother, to acknowledge paternity or attempt to form a relationship with the child before his parental rights are terminated. If a possible father finds out that a woman has fraudulently concealed her pregnancy or a child's birth, he would have up to 30 days after finding out to acknowledge paternity before his parental rights are terminated. 'From an adoptive parent perspective, this bill is frankly terrifying,' said Natalie Carscadden, an adoptive parent. 'Imagine the anxiety that comes when a person who's never met or shown any interest in a child suddenly appears in requests for custody up to a three-month time span after that child is born. This would upset the status quo and put significantly more legal risk on potential adoptive families.' In the committee discussion Thursday, Chesser referenced a court decision on a father's right to act within a 'timely manner.' 'What we are doing is defining what a timely manner means,' he said. The Senate combined the measure with three other bills that have passed the House: House Bill 795, which extends financial assistance for guardians who are related to children who won't be adopted or returned to their parents. Payments through the Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program could start when children are 10. Under current law, children have to be 14 or older. House Bill 162 would have cities and counties require criminal background checks for any person they plan to hire who would work with children. House Bill 182, which would allow judges to issue permanent 'no contact' orders against people convicted of violent crimes.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Forsyth County nonprofit takes holistic approach to helping foster children
FORSYTH COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — A bill currently moving through the state house aims to improve foster care and adoption in North Carolina. House Bill 612 is the 'Fostering Care in NC Act.' It would improve deadlines for investigating reports of abuse and neglect. It would also clarify how children are placed into care. Right now, there are 16,000 children in the state's foster care system, but only about 6,000 foster homes. Check out the difference Community Foundations are making here in the Piedmont Triad That's where Crossnore Communities for Children comes in. It is just one agency in North Carolina that serves children in foster care. It's a place that offers children a safe space to live, to heal and to learn. 'We provide a safe sanctuary of hope and healing for children as they heal from the things they've experienced and look for their forever home,' says Brett Loftis, CEO of Crossnore Communities for Children in Winston-Salem. It's one of three Crossnore campuses across the state, serving more than 1,000 children in the foster care system every year. They're places where children can live, learn, grow, and begin to thrive after suffering trauma. Loftis says Crossnore uses a holistic approach. 'One of the things that Crossnore believes is that children don't come in parts and pieces,' he says. 'They don't have a housing part, a school part and a mental health part. They come as whole people, and so our environment has to support them mind, body and spirit.' Crossnore Communities for Children provides children access to therapy services and education to help them get caught up in school and graduate. Nationally, children in the foster care system only graduate about 50% of the time. Less than 3% go to college. To help improve those numbers, Crossnore in Winston-Salem is renovating part of its campus to include the Crossnore Community Charter School. Loftis says the school will specifically be 'built with the most vulnerable child in mind.' The Crossnore theory is that 'if a school works for the most vulnerable kid that walks in the door, it will work for all children.' The new school is part of a 41-million-dollar comprehensive campaign called The Promise of Home. Loftis says the school will be a model across the state about how to be a trauma-informed school. He says, 'It will serve kids Kindergarten through 8th grade, not only from this campus but from the entire community – those children who may need just a little extra support to make sure they can meet their educational goals.' The new school is set to open for about 200 students in August of this year and will offer smaller classes, more individualized attention, and therapeutic support to students in a safe space. Help from the Winston-Salem Foundation is helping make the school a reality. It will sit on Crossnore's 212-acre campus near a walking trail and the Miracle Grounds Farm and Food Forest, where the school grows fresh vegetables. 'All we want for children we serve here at Crossnore is what everybody wants for their own children and grandchildren – to be happy, to be healthy, to be taken care of, and have access to a high-quality education so that they can have the career and the life that they want,' says Loftis. The Crossnore Charter School will be open to any child who's a resident of Forsyth County. You can get more information on their website. Meanwhile, the 'Fostering Care in NC Act' passed its first reading with bipartisan support. It has now been referred to several house committees. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
