A big THANK YOU to Representatives Alan Morrison and Bob Heaton for meeting today with our AWESOME MEMBERS. We discussed our three priorities going into 2018:
- 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
- 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 adhering to the SAFE Families Act termination guidelines to get children into permanent homes more quickly to give them stability
We also highlighted some of the issues the Department of Child Services is facing, how it affects the children, and our recommendations for closing those gaps. We walked away from our meeting feeling that we had been heard, and that our representatives had a much better understanding of our challenges and solutions.
Pictured from left to right are Mike and Amy Brown Cunningham, Lisa Hughes, Representative Morrison, Antoinette Williams, and Kristi Cundiff, IFAAP Administrator and CEO. Not pictured: Representative Bob Heaton and his wife, Jane Ann Heaton.