Child Welfare

Panel Responds to Youths’ Questions about Child Welfare System Privatization

Child Welfare / By /

Last Wednesday, Child Welfare Director Sarah Helvey spoke at a Reform Roundtable event sponsored by Project Everlast.  About 35 youth with foster care experience attended to eat pizza, learn about privatization, and get answers from a panel of representatives from DHHS, KVC, NFC, Nebraska Appleseed, and Voices for Children.  Questions ranged from how a Title […]

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LB 1063 Aims to Fill Medicaid Gaps & Help Parents Keep Their Kids

Child Welfare, Economic Justice, Health Care / By /

The state’s child welfare system is in great need of reform. A vital piece of ensuring reform is effective is to prevent children from entering the system unnecessarily. LB 1063 is intended to address gaps in Medicaid services for children, which needlessly push children into the system to obtain the mental health services they need. Indeed, LB 1063 makes certain

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A Timely Path to Permanency Requires True System Reform

Child Welfare / By /

LB 1172 requires the County Attorney to file a petition to terminate parental rights when a child under the age of five is in an out-of-home placement for twelve months.  We thank Sen. Pirsch and the judiciary committee for their commitment to increase permanency for younger children in foster care, but believe that reducing case

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Strengthen Transparency, Accountability and Oversight of Nebraska’s Child Welfare System

Child Welfare / By /

We support LB 1160 because it would establish much needed oversight of what is really happening to children and families in the child welfare system. We fully support that the data collected as part of LB 1160 is targeted to provide accountability in individual cases but also seeks to use the information for ongoing systemic

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Address Fiscal Oversight Problems in Nebraska’s Child Welfare System

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LB 949 would create a separate budget program for appropriations of funds for child welfare in Nebraska. LB 949 would also require regular financial reporting by the Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services to the Legislature’s HHS and Appropriations Committees. We also strongly support that LB 949 would require that the Department’s appropriations request

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Ensure Foster Parents Receive the Resources to Meet Children’s Basic Needs

Child Welfare / By /

LB 926 ensures that foster parents in Nebraska will be provided with the resources necessary to meet children’s basic needs.  We thank Sen. Dubas and the other co-sponsors for their commitment to improving the child welfare system and ask that you vote to advance LB 926. [DDET LB 926 Testimony] Senator Kathy Campbell Chair, Health

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An Opportunity for Investment in the Futures of Youth in Foster Care

Child Welfare / By /

Yesterday, the HHS Committee held a hearing on LB 1150, a bill, introduced by Senator McGill with input from Project Everlast youth members, that would extend foster care services on a voluntary basis up to age 21 in Nebraska. For years, adolescents aging out of foster care have struggled with the transition into adulthood. Typical

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Appleseed Supports the Creation of a Children’s Commission

Child Welfare / By /

[DDET LB 821 Testimony] Senator Kathy Campbell Chair, Health and Human Services Committee Room 1402, State Capitol Lincoln, NE 68509 Chairwoman Campbell and members of the Health and Human Services Committee, On behalf of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, I am here to testify in support of LB 821. We

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HHS Budget Should Invest in Children and Families

Child Welfare, Economic Justice, Health Care / By /

On Monday, Nebraska Appleseed’s Executive Director testified at the Appropriations Committee in response to the Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services’ appropriation request.  Appleseed believes that DHHS’s budget must invest in and protect low-income children and families’ needs. [DDET Appleseed Testimony] Senator Lavon Heidemann Chair, Appropriations Committee State Capitol, Room 1004 Lincoln, NE 68509

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