Senate Republicans seek to increase child welfare system hiring, collect better data on exploitation

Senate Republicans are prioritizing legislation to help prevent child sexual exploitation and improve foster care treatment.

SPB 7012 is being proposed by the Senate Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs. Sen. Erin Grall, a Vero Beach Republican, chairs that Committee. In a prepared statement, she highlighted provisions of the bill that would help increase hiring within the welfare system and place foster children into better-equipped homes.

“Case managers and child protective investigators are a critical component of the child welfare system. This legislation will help Florida recruit retired law enforcement officers, emergency first responders, military servicemembers, teachers, healthcare practitioners, and others who have specific training and skills honed over their careers in other fields that will benefit vulnerable children in state care. This is a great opportunity for retirees to stay involved and continue to serve their communities,” Grall said.

“We know we do not currently have enough family-like foster placements for children with high behavioral acuity. The professional foster care pilot program will help us keep more children in a family-like setting with specifically trained foster care families.”

Specifically, the bill calls on the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to create a “child protective investigator and case manager recruitment program” to target former law enforcement officers, first responders, military servicemembers, teachers, health care practitioners” and others who have “held positions of public trust.”

DCF would organize information related to job openings and distribute details about those opportunities to potential employment targets.

Regarding foster care, the legislation sets up a four-year pilot program to place at-risk kids in healthier, family-like settings to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and outcomes regarding such placements. The legislation would also require a final report to be delivered on the findings of the pilot program.

Finally, the legislation seeks to mandate better data collection regarding child sexual exploitation within safe houses. That data would be delivered to the Legislature for analysis.

Importantly, Senate President Ben Albritton is backing the bill, indicating its likely success in the Senate, controlled by a GOP supermajority.

“Our child welfare system is always something we have to work on. There’s always room for improvement. As hard as we try, government can never replace the role of family. The faster we can get children into loving, permanent homes, the better off those children will be in the long run,” said Albritton, a Wauchula Republican.

“Additionally, this bill addresses the need for more data collection to better analyze placement capacity and options for children who have been victims of commercial sexual exploitation. We know vicious criminals are out there each and every day in search of new ways to evade our laws and exploit vulnerable children. The more data we have on when and how this is happening, the better chance we have to stay one step ahead of these predators and keep vulnerable children safe.”