Bill > HF1918

This bill makes comprehensive changes to child welfare, foster care, and child protection policies in Minnesota, with a focus on improving outcomes for children, particularly those from African American and disproportionately represented communities. Key provisions include establishing more robust requirements for out-of-home placement plans, enhancing documentation and review processes for children in foster care, creating new reporting mechanisms for school attendance concerns, and strengthening protocols for identifying and engaging with children's family heritage and cultural background. The bill introduces new requirements for social services agencies to conduct more thorough relative searches, provide detailed transition planning for youth aging out of foster care, and ensure more culturally sensitive approaches to child welfare. Specifically, the bill mandates that agencies inquire about a child's heritage, Tribal lineage, race, culture, and ethnicity throughout various stages of child welfare proceedings, and establishes new guidelines for concurrent permanency planning, court reviews, and support for children transitioning to adulthood. The legislation also updates definitions, reporting requirements, and administrative procedures to improve the overall child welfare system's effectiveness and responsiveness to individual children's needs.

Education, Justice

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php?b=House&f=HF1918&ssn=0&y=2025