[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 138 (Thursday, October 2, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1968-E1969]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           INTRODUCTION FOR THE KEEPING FAMILIES TOGETHER ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 2, 2003

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, there is a tragedy going on across our 
country every day in which parents are being forced to turn over 
custody of their severely emotionally disturbed children to state child 
welfare agencies or the juvenile justice system as their only means of 
obtaining desperately needed mental health services. These instances of 
child custody relinquishment happen when families are uninsured or have 
inadequate health insurance to pay for treatment of their child's 
illness. Because this nation's social safety net is not designed to 
help these families stay together, parents are being forced to turn 
their child over to the state in order to get the medical attention 
they so desperately need.
  The ``Keeping Families Together Act'' which Senator Collins, Senator 
Pryor, Representative Ramstad and Representative Kennedy, and I are 
introducing today will help end this barbaric practice of child custody 
relinquishment.
  The problem is widespread. In a report we requested, the U.S. General 
Accounting Office report found that parents placed over 12,700 children 
in 19 states and 30 counties into the child welfare system or juvenile 
justice system as their only means to assure that these children could 
receive vitally needed mental health services.
  The GAO report looked at a limited number of states and acknowledged 
that the number of families impacted nationwide is much higher. To add 
further credence to that finding, a recent survey conducted by the 
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) found that 25% of parents 
of children with serious emotional disturbance reported being advised 
to relinquish custody of their child in order to access needed mental 
health services.
  According to another report by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health 
Law, the situations that cause parents and guardians to give up their 
seriously emotionally disturbed children to state agencies include the 
following:
  The family has either exhausted their private health insurance 
benefits or their benefits do not cover required mental health services 
(e.g. Residential Treatment Program).
  The family lives in a state or jurisdiction in which Medicaid 
services do not adequately address mental health needs and agency

[[Page E1969]]

placement provides access or priority status for entry into needed 
care.
  The family lives in a state or jurisdiction in which children are 
deprived of federally mandated mental health services through the 
Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) as a result of an exceedingly 
restrictive definition of serious emotional illness. That is, these 
schools often label these children as solely ``discipline problems.''
  The family lives in a state or jurisdiction in which the local child 
welfare system erroneously interprets federal law (Title IV-E of the 
Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Program) as requiring 
relinquishment of custody even for temporary out-of-home placements.

  As all of these reports highlight, families are acting out of 
desperation to get immediately needed mental health services for their 
children. In essence, the juvenile justice and child welfare systems 
have become the mental health providers of last resort for far too many 
families.
  Both the child welfare system and juvenile justice systems are ill 
equipped to meet these children's needs. Even worse, the psychological 
bond between parent and child is unnecessarily disrupted. These 
children feel abandoned and their parents feel guilty over their 
parental rights and decision-making authority and to a state agency. 
The stigma is real--to families themselves and to those around them. 
Good parents don't have their children taken away. But, in fact, the 
need to relinquish custody in these instances doesn't have anything to 
do with parenting skills. It has everything to do with our system being 
broken and continuing to allow these children with significant mental 
health needs to fall through the cracks.
  We have known about this problem for many years. In fact, I first 
introduced legislation in 1995 attempting to address this issue. Since 
then I have been working with my colleagues to educate the public and 
other members of Congress about this issue and to find a bipartisan 
solution.
  Our legislation, the ``Keeping Families Together Act'' is the result 
of this bipartisan and bicameral process. Our bill provides new funding 
to states that are willing to develop systems that assure these 
children get the mental health services they need without pulling apart 
their families.
  It provides $55 million in new family support grants to states that 
are willing to end the practice of child custody relinquishment and 
cover all these children's mental health services under Medicaid, CHIP 
or any other health program of their choosing. These monies can then be 
used to improve access to mental health and family support services 
that keep families together. They can also be used to create statewide 
care coordination programs and to deliver mental health care and family 
support services for these families.
  Additionally, the bill establishes a federal interagency task force 
that is responsible for monitoring the family support grants and 
working with representatives of affected families to make 
recommendations to Congress to improve mental health services and to 
foster interagency cooperation in order to remove barriers that have 
caused child custody relinquishment. The task force is also required to 
provide biannual reports to Congress on its progress in improving the 
delivery of mental health services to seriously ill children.
  The bill also provides states with the option of moving children out 
of hospital-based psychiatric care and into home and community based 
care options, which will allow them to remain with their families.
  The Keeping Families Together Act is an important first step toward 
eliminating child custody relinquishment. I look forward to working 
with my colleagues to quickly enact this legislation so states can 
develop innovative new programs that address these children's mental 
health needs while keeping their families together. Once we've learned 
what has effectively worked at the state level to restructure these 
programs, we will need to return to this issue at the federal level and 
enact broad legislation to end the practice of forced child custody 
relinquishment nationwide.

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