ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., introduced legislation Wednesday aimed at strengthening federal oversight of state foster care systems.
The bipartisan bill, cosponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, follows a 13-month investigation a Senate subcommittee chaired by Ossoff conducted into the abuse and neglect of children in Georgia’s foster care system.
Among the Human Rights Subcommittee’s findings were incidents involving “hidden” foster care placements, which occur when a state child protection agency places a child with a caregiver informally.
In many cases, these placements involve relatives. Such placements are happening without the oversight of a court, and these children are not counted in official foster care numbers.
Ossoff’s bill would require states to measure and report to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) incidents in which children are separated from their parents and placed with a caregiver informally. HHS would be required to submit a publicly available report to Congress on the use of hidden foster care.
“This bipartisan legislation … will strengthen federal oversight of state foster care systems and better protect foster children from physical abuse, sexual abuse, or human trafficking,” Ossoff said.
The subcommittee interviewed more than 100 witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of documents to investigate the human rights violations children may be suffering in foster care.