For Immediate Release: September 14, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the House Ways and Means Committee unanimously passed legislation that brings Congressman Jim McDermott’s innovative additions to child welfare legislation one step closer to being signed into law. McDermott’s proposal, which is part of a larger House package, would allow states, like Washington, to obtain waivers from the federal government to test innovative interventions in their child welfare programs.

“Washington state is one of the states that has been able to test innovative child welfare policy in the past. Many states are ready to test new techniques aimed at improving services for at-risk children and families, but they are restricted from doing so by current law,” said McDermott. “We know that different approaches work for different states, and this bill would give the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services the ability that it previously had to allow a few states to develop next-generation reforms for vulnerable populations.”

Specifically, the approved legislation would renew the waiver authority that was granted to HHS in 1997 and expired in 2006. During that time period, 23 state and local governments implemented child welfare demonstration projects involving a variety of innovative program strategies, including subsidized guardianship, services for parents with addictions, intensive preventive services, and adoption and post-permanency services. Many of these innovative programs proved themselves to bear valuable outcomes.

The bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee today also includes a measure requiring states to adopt protocols for using and monitoring psychotropic medications among foster children. This measure builds upon Section 205 of McDermott’s 2008 Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions law, which required states to develop health coordination plans and include oversight of prescription medications, including psychotropic drugs.

The passed bill will likely be voted on in the House next week. Companion legislation was introduced in the Senate and today’s action brings McDermott’s measure one step closer to being signed into law.

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