Newly signed bills boost foster parent rights

Washington State--Some foster parent organizations hope that new laws and recent controversies will bring attention to their effort to secure more rights. The measure, House Bill 1782, allows courts to consider long absences by parents when deciding whether to end their visitation rights. Foster children removed from their parents’ home for a second time should be placed with foster parents they know, according to Senate Bill 5431, signed Thursday. “You need to look at homes where the child has spent the most time, and has affection. Attachment matters,” said Malkasian, president of the Foster Care Justice Alliance. Gregoire has ordered a review of the case after a judge questioned why the state would take the girl from the only home she has known. “I’m not here to find out what’s right for the department, what’s right for the court, or what’s right for foster parents,” she said. “It’s what’s right for the child that to me is paramount.”
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