South Dakota Proposal for Foster Parents Bill of Rights

“Several South Dakota lawmakers from the Yankton area came together with local foster parents Friday, learning more about some key issues that may be addressed in the upcoming legislative session.

House Minority Leader Bernie Hunhoff says there are about 1500 kids in foster care across South Dakota and many of their foster parents are bringing up some common concerns.

“Today was about getting a voice for the foster parents,” long time foster mom Kristi Lee said of Friday’s meeting.

“We feel like we’re more babysitters than anything else and we have these children in our homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and treat them like our own children and care very much for them and feel like we have no say so in the decisions,” Lee said.

“Not to say that the whole system is bad, but there are just some things that need to be improved for foster parents to have a few more rights to take care of the kids that are placed with them,” foster mom Sheri Duke said.

Concerns the Yankton area law makers are hoping to learn more about and share with other lawmakers in Pierre this legislative session.

“What we really need to do here is create a foster parents bill of rights; 15 states across the country have done that, but we don’t have that in South Dakota,” Hunhoff said.

In other states, these foster parent bills of rights include things like the right to provide input on the kind of care their foster child might need or the right to background information on their behavior or health issues.

“Many times we as foster parents feel like we don’t know enough information to do a good job as their parents, because we don’t know their backgrounds coming in, we don’t know the things that are affecting them, in order to parent them in an effect matter. Sometimes we need to know a little more about what they’ve been through, what they’re dealing with, what issues they might have, so that communication piece is very important,” Duke said.

Lawmakers say this bill would really be all about improving communication between foster parents and the Department of Social services.

“Everyone is clearly in it for the kids-the state, the foster parents, the legislators, social workers-everyone is trying to do the best thing for the kids and its really just about better communication,” Hunhoff said.

“If some of those underlying frustrating issues could get resolved, being a foster parent is great; being able to give these kids a second chance is a wonderful thing,” Duke said.

Legislators say this bill plays right in line with a massive juvenile justice system overhaul the state is looking at this legislative session.

“We’re going to have a massive overhaul of the way we treat juveniles once they enter the court system, and actually foster parents are a great way to keep those kids out of the court system, so this is hopefully going to get the root causes of the problem,” Hunhoff said.

“I think there will be a lot of chatter this year in Pierre. They said a big issue this year is juvenile delinquency, and this all ties into it. If we can’t break the cycle of abuse in these children…some of these kids will end up in institutions,” Lee said.

Foster parents say with the right tools, they can play a big role in preventing many kids from ending up in the criminal system.”

South Dakota lawmakers consider proposal for Foster Parents’ Bill of Rights[Kfsy 1/2/15 by Bridget Bennett]

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