Every year, thousands of Colorado youth have interactions with the foster care system. Navigating the labyrinth of court systems and government bureaucracies can be challenging, especially if it’s unclear what right one holds as a youth while in the foster care system. House Bill 24-1017 aims to make those rights more concrete and accessible.
HB24-1017, titled Bill of Rights for Foster Youth, creates a statutory bill of rights for youth in foster care in Colorado. The bill is sponsored by Democratic Reps. Lindsey Daugherty and Jennifer Parenti and Sen. Rachel Zenziger.
Chris Henderson, executive director of Colorado’s Office of the Child’s Representative, told Law Week the bill follows the 2011 Protections for Youth in Foster Care and the 2022 Right to Counsel for Youth legislation. The most recent bill, HB24-1017, came about with a significant amount of youth involvement, which Henderson highlighted as an important component of the bill.
“I think society and child welfare have realized that the children are the only ones in the system through no fault of their own,” Henderson said. “And if we don’t start to listen to how it is to be a child in the system, and then to protect them more, I think we’re doing a disservice.”
Making Current Laws More Effective
Daugherty told Law Week the basis of the current bill was the 2011 Protections for Youth in Foster Care legislation. Since that bill became law, Daugherty said there’s been a lot of modernizing statutes.
“We wanted to put them all in one place in this bill, so that the foster youth could be noticed and know where all their rights are contained in kind of one document as opposed to all over the place,” said Daugherty. “And also there’s some enforcement mechanisms there. So they are allowed to bring up what’s going on in court and the judge can issue rulings based on their rights and that sort of thing.”
The enforcement mechanism, shift to rights instead of protections and court oversight empowers the child, according to Henderson.
“It’s not a protection anymore, it’s a right. I think it’s important to note, it’s not a monetary or a civil judgment. We didn’t put in this bill, that kids are going to sue for money,” said Henderson. “It is that if someone is violating their rights, the right to hygiene, they actually have a mechanism to go to court and say you can’t do that. And you have to help me and you are in charge of caring for me and you have to respect my rights. And so it gives them a mechanism to actually have a court proceeding to enforce it.”
Dawn Fritz, director of legislative engagement at Colorado PTA, said the enforcement mechanism was a significant factor in Colorado PTA’s decision to take its highest level of support for the bill.
Included in the language of the bill is also a requirement for the Office of the Child’s Representative to develop a written notice of the rights of foster youth. The notice includes contact information for the office’s appointed attorney, the Child Protection Ombudsman of Colorado, the appropriate county department of human or social services and the Colorado Department of Human Services.
The notice is required to be provided to each child or youth five years of age or older, and must be accessible to the youth or child in their home.
Claire Carmelia, a former foster youth and council member for Westminster, testified in support of the bill at the committee hearing from a personal standpoint, and said her personal experiences in the foster system led to her advocacy for the bill. She wrote to Law Week via email sharing her personal opinion about the bill’s provision for access to a written bill of rights.
“The most impactful part of the bill is the written access to the rights themselves, for the child upon each and every placement, with contact information included for their appointed attorney, ombudsman, county social services, and Dept. of Human Services,” wrote Carmelia. “This is giving kids the power to understand their own rights, to reach out themselves if necessary, and provides the critical access to have their voice be heard.”
Tori Shuler, director of advocacy at Fostering Great Ideas, said the notice would be a useful and important tool for youth in foster care and for their advocates.
“It’s not just a tool for the young person. It’s a tool for the caseworkers and the GALs and the Counsel for Youth and the CASAs and the judges,” said Shuler. “It’s a great tool for judges too. And so I think when we make things accessible to the youth, we make them accessible to most everyone. And I think that that really levels the playing field and helps the youth feel more like they can be involved and speak up for themselves.”
Issues with the Bill’s Specific Protections
The bill didn’t pass through committee and its second reading without objection. In committee, Republican Reps. Brandi Bradley and Richard Holtorf took issue with the sections of the bill that offered specific protections to LGBTQ+ youth and a provision Bradley viewed as violating religious freedom.
At the bill’s second reading, the representatives took issue with those provisions and a line in the bill that gave youth in foster care freedom from discrimination or harassment based on HIV status.
An amendment at the second reading, proposed by Bradley, would have struck the specific protections for sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and HIV status. The amendment failed.
Holtorf provided more details to Law Week about his reservations on the bill.
“We have never had in rulemaking the reference to LGBTQ and also reference to pronouns and foster families having to recognize those pronouns, and that particular policy position,” said Holtorf. “That is new, and I’m afraid because many foster families come from religious communities, with strong religious beliefs, that they are now going to be reluctant to continue participation in the foster family system. So when you put that language into rulemaking and statute in a Foster Youth Bill of Rights, then you can disqualify many members because of the litigious nature of the statute. And how now it is legally binding under statute. That can cause civil suits under the statute.”
Holtorf said he didn’t think he’d have any reservations if Bradley’s amendment was passed.
Henderson told Law Week the protections were important to his office because the LGBTQ+ population is marginalized.
“Statistics show about 30% of children in foster care identify as LGBTQ, and we hear about their outcomes and their mental health issues and being suicidal because of how they’re being treated,” said Henderson. “And so we carved out those protections because that’s a part of the foster care system that we know is being mistreated. But it in no [way] invalidates the other children. It’s a bill for all kids.”
Giving Foster Youth Dignity and a Voice
Advocates for the bill echoed the sentiment that the bill’s largest impact would be in providing youth in foster care dignity and a voice.
“That’s really what the core of this bill is,” said Henderson. “Just treating every child who’s in the system with respect and just basic dignity and human rights.”
Daugherty said that what kept coming back during her work on youth centered bills was a feeling among the youth that they didn’t have a voice. She noted that just knowing what rights kids have will help them have a voice in the system.
Shuler highlighted how the bill’s specific protections and clauses protect youth in foster care to a new degree.
“What’s really important for me is this [bill] restores humanity. It really spells out exactly, you know, how people deserve to be treated in foster care and I think that that’s really important,” said Shuler. “I think it’s important to protect foster children, and especially protect ones that are particularly vulnerable to discrimination within the foster care system.”
Carmelia emphasized how much of an impact the bill could have for children in foster care and the state at large.
“Children are people. They are future members of our society. I think this bill, if enforced, could be fundamentally life changing for children in foster care, and ultimately for Colorado,” wrote Carmelia. “It is said, ‘the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.’ For foster kids, who have every possible obstacle thrown their way at the beginning of their lives, providing them a bill of rights for caregivers and the legal system to abide by is the very least we can do.”