This story is being co-published with The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice.
Advocates seeking to codify the rights of foster youth in Minnesota are hoping a last-minute push to have the bill considered by lawmakers will result in its passage before the Legislature’s quickly approaching deadlines.
Crafted by Minnesota’s Office of the Foster Youth Ombudsperson less than a year after the watchdog agency’s official opening, the Foster Youth Bill of Rights seeks to enshrine more than 150 rights into law — some already existing under current law, others entirely new. The proposed legislation, which resulted from months of gathering input from those who grew up in the state’s child welfare system, includes everything from children’s right to physical safety and privacy to the right to make decisions about their own healthcare and staying connected to their families of origin.
Empowering the state’s roughly 6,200 foster youth with a clear understanding of the protections and rights to which they are entitled is the intention behind the effort, advocates said.
“We hear from fosters of all ages, saying, ‘I didn’t know about any of my rights,’” said Misty Coonce, the state’s ombudsperson for foster youth. “We want to avoid a continuation of that. We want to make sure that the foster youth bill of rights is given to fosters when they enter care and then on a regular basis. Knowledge is power. The more you know about your rights, the more you yourself can speak about them.”
If passed, SF 3154 would allow Minnesota to join at least 15 other states that have a bill of rights for foster youth formalized in a law.
But this week, advocates admitted that the bill faces a big hurdle to being passed before the current legislative session ends on May 19 because of its late introduction and competing legislative demands. Even so, Democratic Sen. Mary Kunesh, the bill’s lead author, is continuing to push for it, said Jack Vinck, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party.
“This is just a really common sense, no nonsense bill that I’m hopeful everybody can get behind,” Kunesh said.
If it fails to move forward this year, legislators could consider it next year without the need to reintroduce it, Vinck said.
Before becoming a state senator, Kunesh was a teacher for 25 years and worked with all kinds of families, including foster families. One strength of the bill, she said, is its two pages of definitions for words like, “abuse,” “belongings,” “clean,” “consent,” “culturally appropriate,” “harassment” and “privacy.”
“It’s really important that we codify not only the vocabulary and the meaning, but also create what the basic expectation is around the needs and the resources that every child in the foster care system should be receiving,” Kunesh said.
An effort led by foster youth
The Minnesota proposal builds on a patchwork of existing statutes and regulations that ensure foster youths’ right to safety, education and basic needs.
“In Minnesota, there’s not a solid, shared understanding of what the bare minimums are,’’ said Hannah Planalp, assistant ombudsperson for foster youth. “Some of the things in here are not brand new. It’s really about how we can all get on the same page so that foster youth, no matter where they are, no matter who’s managing their case, are at the same starting point.”
Every idea contributed to the bill came from someone who spent time in the child welfare system, including Planalp and Coonce, Coonce said. A team of more than two dozen youth advocates, law school students, foster parent representatives and state officials then spent months sifting through reams of feedback and ideas.
Lexi Borgesen, who entered foster care at the age of 15, began working on the bill of rights while she was finishing her master’s degree in public policy at the University of Minnesota. Now an outreach and engagement specialist at the ombud’s office, she was responsible for leading a series of focus groups with foster youth across the state to learn more about what they wanted to see included.
“A lot of the themes included getting access to resources and being knowledgeable about the resources that are available to them,” Borgesen said. “We’re often not told what’s available for us when we’re in care and out of care.”
When she was a teenager, Borgesen didn’t know anyone else in foster care other than her younger siblings. There was no one to go to for advice about how to maneuver the system. She didn’t realize, for instance, that she had access to resources like Chafee funds — federal grant money to assist foster youth transitioning to adulthood, she said. And it wasn’t until she was already in college that she learned other basic information no one had ever told her about, such as needing a credit score to secure an apartment.
Other themes that emerged in the focus groups, she said, were the desire to know about forms of recourse available to children who have been harmed in foster homes, and the right to stay connected to cultures, families of origin and friends.
Ace Goff was one of several focus group participants who advocated for the inclusion of protections around culturally based hygiene needs. Goff recalled foster homes where she didn’t have access to hair care products for Black girls and women. She needed those products to care for her hair but didn’t feel she had a right to ask for them, she said.
“When you’re going into that type of care, you’re not clear about what you should tolerate,” Goff said. “My mindset was like, ‘It could always be worse.’”
Under the proposed bill of rights, hygiene and hair products are classified as basic needs. “Protective hairstyling services, bonnets, durags, lotions, shampoo, conditioner, and body wash” are also listed under the right to maintain cultural connections.
“We want to make sure that the foster youth bill of rights is given to fosters when they enter care and then on a regular basis. Knowledge is power.”
Misty Coonce, Minnesota ombudsperson for foster youth
For others, including language about keeping kids in care connected to their families of origin was important. Focus group participant Nia Dyer said that foster kids often “don’t know anything about what’s going on to their families on the outside.’’
Minnesota already has a sibling bill of rights, which states that kids in care have a right to be placed with or near siblings when possible, and to be informed when a sibling changes placements. The proposed bill of rights goes beyond honoring sibling ties, stating that kids in care should be told “in a personal and confidential manner if a relative of the foster youth dies or is experiencing life-threatening health issues when the agency is aware.”
Calling attention to basic needs like food was also crucial to Dyer. In one of her foster homes, the family placed locks on the kitchen cupboards and an alarm on the refrigerator door. As a teen, Dyer began hoarding food in her bedroom. The constant fear of going hungry led to unhealthy eating habits and health problems that she is still dealing with today, she said.
The proposed bill of rights states that foster youth have the right to “sufficient food and beverages that promote the foster youth’s health and nutrition.” It further says foster youth should not be put on diets to lose or gain weight unless a healthcare professional has recommended it.
“If my placements chose to follow half of what we brought up in the bill of rights, my experience would’ve been a heck of a lot less traumatic,” Dyer said.
