Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2857, to support foster care maintenance payments for children with parents in a licensed residential facility. Last month, when the National Foster Youth Institute sponsored Foster Youth Shadow Day, several of the youth, in a townhall meeting that we had, described their parents' challenges with substance abuse. One young lady said that both of her parents were addicted to heroin, and that she was taken into court and, in front of her, the judge said to her parents: ``If you don't clean up, we're going to take your children away.'' {time} 1745 After she left court, she was taken away. She was removed from her parents. Ultimately, her parents continued to use, and, sadly, both of them died. This young woman grew up feeling guilty and feeling that part of the reason why her parents passed away was because she was used as leverage, and that if her parents had been kept together in drug treatment along with her maybe she wouldn't be an orphan today and her parents would have lived and she wouldn't have had to grow up in foster care. H.R. 2857 will allow programs like SHIELDS for Families that does address parental substance abuse and keeps families together to have the resources to expand their programs. Today, we heard five bills that addressed challenges in the child welfare system.…”