On the recordMay 20, 2019
I am so happy that H.R. 2480 includes several noteworthy improvements to the CAPTA Act. One is a bill that I introduced last Congress called Family Poverty is Not Child Neglect Act. It recognizes that 75 percent of child abuse referrals are not because of malicious abuse, but because of symptoms of poverty that officials categorize as neglect. It would mandate States to treat those conditions of poverty with service-based remedies that will reduce the parental separation risk disproportionately affecting low-income children and families. I am so pleased that federally-supported distinctions between poverty-based lack and parental maltreatment unrelated to poverty has been added to our Stronger CAPTA bill. Poverty-related conditions should be met with poverty-alleviating solutions, not child separation. Madam Speaker, I just want to share my own personal story. My own experience, at age 18, was that I was separated from my child, who was placed in foster care, because my scholarship money would not cover living expenses. And while she was placed in a loving foster home, this was traumatic for me, and constituted an adverse childhood experience for my daughter. So I am so pleased to stand here today to say, as a witness, that we should do everything we can to avoid child separations, and this bill addresses it. Madam Speaker, I thank all of the authors on both sides of the aisle.
