ATLANTA — Efforts to reform Georgia’s foster care system and reduce the number of children housed in hotels and offices were among the top bipartisan successes during the 2023 legislative session.

One of the most crucial bills, Senate Bill 133, seeks to reform how children enter foster care, stemming from “inconsistencies in different courts in the state” in placing a child into the custody of Department of Children and Family Services, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Brian Strickland, a McDonough Republican, said.

The bill, approved by both the House and Senate on the last day of Georgia’s 2023 legislative session, creates a uniform process for DFCS to assume custody of children based on Children In Need of Services (CHINS) or delinquency disposition orders.

Before placing a child in DFCS custody on a non-emergency basis or in the absence of exceptional circumstances, the bill requires the court to consider what services have been provided to the child or his or her parent/guardian, and also consider what services are available to them that could allow the child to remain at home.

“No one here speaks for parents a lot of times because we focus a lot on the children, as we should,” Stickland said. “But the parents also have rights at these proceedings where the kids are being taken away. and so this comes from DFCS because a lot of the issue is making sure that they are at the table and that they at least have the information they need to properly place the child.”

But some judges have argued that the additional requirements of tenants to consider before DFCS placement may add difficulty to the process.

“That is difficult for us to do sometimes because there are going to be many times where I’m in a delinquency disposition or CHINS disposition and I’m not going to have any of that information,” said Judge Nhan-Ai Simms of the Gwinnett County Juvenile Court. “If the law requires that I consider it before I can even place a child in the DFCS custody, that is a problem.”

According to the bill, the court must also consider previous efforts made to secure the placement of the child other than in DFCS custody. The bill also requires DFCS to receive notice of a disposition hearing of the child in need and have an opportunity to provide information about the availability of services for the child to the court.

But testimonies reveal that even when DFCS is required to appear in court, it is frequently a rare appearance due to high caseworker turnover.

“Imagine a master’s degree-wielding 20-something-year-old social worker with 20-something cases on her plate who gets an email at 3 p.m. on Friday — subject line: Court order attached still gathering info — to go pick up a teenage boy charged as an adult for rape with a long history of violence, alone in her Honda Civic,” Candice Broce, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services, described at a January meeting. “She’ll probably quit right then and there.”

Parties to the CHINS cases shall provide copies of all medical, psychological and educational assessments and reports about the child and the child’s parent or guardian in their possession to DFCS no later than 72 hours after a child is ordered into DFCS custody by the court.

Simms said while sending a child into DFCS custody isn’t an easy decision, her decisions are made with care and consideration about the safety and wellbeing of the child.

“I believe DFCS is essentially saying that there are too many kids in foster care, and as a result, they are having to hotel those kids, which is not anything that anyone wants,” she said. “…The solution for that needs to be something other than ‘Let’s limit the [number] of children that can go into custody.’ The solution can’t be to limit the judges’ ability to immediately protect a child.”

She suggested that more funding be funneled to DFCS for additional resources to recruit foster parents and more funding for DBHDD to help children in a mental health crisis.

“The solution needs to be let’s give Department of Juvenile Justice more resources so that they can create more community-oriented programs that can maybe help it so that the child doesn’t have to come into foster care in the first place,” she added.

Judge Render Heard of the juvenile court of the Tifton Judicial Circuit said the bill’s requirement that judges also make “child dependency findings” in addition to CHINS findings could create problems in the process.

“Because not all kids fit neatly into the dependency situation where a parent has done everything they know how to do but still is unable to control the child’s behavior, to address the child’s truancy, or was dealing with the child runaway…or they’re unruly and habitually disobedient,” Heard said.

“There need to be some additional things in the CHINS statute from a procedural standpoint,” he added. “We just don’t need the dependency finding, but (DFCS) needs that part in, and that’s where we’re stuck.”

DHS representatives argued judges, through the state constitution, are already required to determine CHINS and dependency cases where DFCS has not already been a party but some judges do not always adhere.

“We are only asking that if a child is going to enter our custody, that it follows existing law, that their parents can come to a hearing and actually be represented by counsel so that their child wasn’t taken away from them sometimes over their objections,” Broce said.

Broce referenced an example of a judge who ordered a child into DFCS custody because he determined the grandmother was in danger due to the child’s autism diagnosis.

“What would benefit that family would be services provided in the home. The law provides for that but that is not always considered,” Broce said. “We do not want CHINS to be a pipeline to foster care. We wanted services to be provided when it could, instead of foster care, and this bill will move the needle on that.”

During Broce’s Jan. 17 presentation to House and Senate joint appropriations, she said approximately 50 children in foster care are housed in a DFCS office or hotel on any given night.

Children considered “complex” often have difficulty obtaining placement in a foster home due to the heightened level of supervision required and they are most likely to be subjected to the practice called “hoteling,” which cost DFCS $28 million in fiscal year 2022.

Of the 10,750 children in foster care in January, more than 6,600 are placed with foster families; 2,000 are placed with relatives; and 1,314 are living in a congregate care or group home setting.

Other bills approved by legislators this year for foster care reform include:

SR 282: creates a study committee to review guidelines and processes related to improving foster care and adoptions, and recommends any action or legislation which the committee deems necessary or appropriate.

The resolution notes that the existing state of foster care and adoption processes in Georgia could benefit from revising and streamlining such processes, and to that end funding barriers, fee structures, and requirements for public and private adoptions and the care of Georgia’s foster children should be examined.

SB 131: updates notification requirements for permanent guardianship proceedings to align with notice requirements for termination of parental rights (TPR). Proponents of the bill say that existing law makes it harder to secure guardianship for kids in foster care.

SB 134: deems a child witness competent to testify in all proceedings involving termination of parental rights. The bill also allows any medical report in narrative form and notice of intention to introduce such report to be provided to the adverse party in all juvenile dependency adjudications involving injury or disease.

SB 135: allows more options for genetic testing and paternity establishment. Genetic testing was allowed to be conducted by laboratories certified by the American Association of Blood Banks and the lab’s results must meet AABB standards in order to be submitted as evidence in court. SB 135 allows a laboratory accredited by an accrediting body designated by the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services to submit results into court evidence.

SB 216: allows a caregiver of a child in foster care to arrange respite care, or occasional or short-term relief for a caregiver by a person or entity, for up to 72 hours or longer based on rules determined by the Department of Human Services (DHS).

HB 460: gives the right to an appointed attorney for children and young adults in foster care, and a child who who is the subject of guardianship hearing.