Our Meeting at the Governor’s Office was AMAZING! We met with a key member of Governor Holcomb‘s staff, Mr. John Hammond, who oversees the operations of Indiana’s Department of Child Services, as well as other agencies. It was one of the most productive meetings yet! In the our meeting we discussed the following IFAAP priorities:
- Invest & Protect
- Child care financial assistance, where we shared results of our IFAAP survey feedback that many foster parents would take, or consider taking, more children if there were funding for child care, and how the CANS assessment was never designed to put a cost on taking care of a child
- Car seat safety and certification, to prevent car seat-related tragedies like Major Maxie’s
- Trauma-Informed Care (TIC)
- We discussed the importance of having school and day care personnel TIC-trained so they know how to best work with children who have experienced trauma and are unable to effectively communicate their feelings
- We highlighted the value of becoming a TIC state to attract providers and facilities who specialize in TIC
- Follow the Fed
- Talked about the importance of DCS adhering to the SAFE Families Act termination guidelines to get children into permanent homes more quickly to give them stability
We also touched on the opioid epidemic and moms who are having multiple children. As we finished, we talked about meeting with Mr. Hammond and DCS officials every three months to be problem solvers. Our voices are being heard!