After 105 consecutive days, the 2021 legislative session ended on April 25, 2021. It was a landmark session in many ways, for both its process (first-ever virtual session!) and its substance.
Historic gains were made to advance racial justice initiatives, protect the legal rights of children and youth, and ensure that those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic had access to economic and legal aid.
LCYC tracked several bills throughout session and contributed—through public testimony, advocacy letters and emails, and coalition partnerships—to some exciting victories this session. To name just a few:
House Bill 1219 will provide legal counsel to dependent children and youth across Washington State. After more than decade of incremental legislative advocacy, the bill passed with impressive bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate due to the tenacity of young people at The Mockingbird Society and a strong coalition of local and national partner advocates. The bill will be implemented over the next six years, with the Children’s Representation Program overseeing the program and implementation efforts. Ultimately, the bill will ensure that children and youth in foster care (ages 8 and up) will receive an attorney at the start of their dependency case (at shelter care). Children under 8 will receive an attorney when a petition for termination of parental rights is filed. A workgroup will reconvene this summer and through the fall to revisit and make recommendations on the 2010 Standards of Practice, Training, and Caseload Limits. LCYC Staff Attorney, Annie Chung, is a member of that workgroup, and we are excitedly tracking the implementation work ahead so that dependent children and youth have access to high quality, well-supported legal counsel in these often years-long complex legal proceedings.
House Bill 1072 removes the immigrant restriction on state funded civil legal aid dollars. The bill ensures that undocumented people can access civil legal aid—people who are already in a vulnerable position because of their legal status. Removing the restriction will mean that they will have the ability to resolve legal issues, including stabilizing their family situation, preventing eviction, saving their home from foreclosure, protecting themselves from debt collection, avoiding medical care costs in instances of intimate partner violence, and many others.
House Bill 1227, also referred to as “Keeping Families Together,” will help reduce the effects of implicit bias by appropriately increasing the burden of removal for Child Protective Services and shifting legal presumptions around relative placement. We hope it will achieve its goal to reduce the overall number of families entering the system, thus reducing the number of families unnecessarily separated, especially families of color, who are disproportionately policed by the child welfare system.
There were many more momentous victories this session, and this summer we will be updating our Systemic Advocacy page to highlight them.
And while it may feel like the 2021 session just wrapped up and we are in the early days of implementation work on bills that passed, we are also already preparing for the 2022 session!
LCYC is working internally and with external advocacy partners to identify what issues might be high priority for the “short,” 60-day session that starts in early January 2022.
Some potential issues that we will be tracking include:
Implementation of the Uniform Guardianship Act: Minor Guardianships. This law passed in 2019, was amended in 2020, and was implemented January 1, 2021. Among many other things, the law allows minors to file a Minor Guardianship petition if they want to live outside of the home with a trusted caregiver. As counties implement the law, LCYC and our partners are identifying training and funding gaps that may slow the finalization of the guardianship for minors, their parents, and caregivers.
Furthering the work of Keeping Families Together. Advocates continue to explore ways to attack the implicit bias and racism that exists in our child welfare system. We will work with our partners to identify additional reforms that could help address the historic disproportionality the child welfare system perpetuates on families of color.
For now, we are grateful for the tireless advocacy of legislators and our community partners. We hope for continued momentum to advance progressive reforms that best serve children, youth, and families in 2022 and beyond.
If you want to learn more about our systemic advocacy work this session or how you can get engaged and provide remote testimony on a bill you care about, please contact LCYC’s Director of Policy & Systemic Advocacy, Erin Shea McCann: esmccann@lcycwa.org.