Last year I blogged about recommendations for state-level changes regarding Minnesota's parental recognition laws as they pertain to adoption and foster care by same-sex couples. As it stands, Minnesota law is unclear on the legality of joint adoptions and second-parent adoptions; these issues have instead been left up to individual courts to decide. Last week Minnesota became the 12th state...

Yesterday Governor Dayton signed the omnibus Health & Human Services (HHS) Finance bill, making it Chapter 108 in the 2013 Session Laws. The main point of this bill was to establish the HHS budget, but there are also policy changes that will impact child welfare. One big change from earlier versions of the bill is the inclusion of Northstar Care...

May is National Foster Care Awareness Month. This is a way to bring awareness and attention to the needs of foster youths, foster parents, adoptive parents, and so many other individuals who work to help these children succeed. Interestingly, May is also National Mental Health Awareness Month per a presidential proclamation signed by President Barack Obama. This was done with...

On Sunday Governor Dayton and House and Senate leaders announced that they had come to an agreement on budget targets for the next biennium. This announcement was particularly important for those of us in the health and human services field, as Governor Dayton and the legislative leaders had different ideas regarding the budget target for health and human services. House...

Early Childhood Education Emerges as Important Issue The E-12 Omnibus bill (HF630), as it currently stands, makes early childhood education a clear priority. Both the House and Senate files include funding for all day kindergarten beginning in 2015 and expand scholarships for children ages 3-5 to attend quality child care facilities. The House bill also increases funding to Head Start,...

On May 1, 2013, the Family Reunification Act of 2013 was signed into law by Governor Dayton. The Family Reunification Act would allow under certain circumstances the reestablishment of legal parent and child relationships. The goal is to provide permanency for certain youth in foster care who would otherwise age out of the system. Under the new law, the county...