grassley

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley and colleagues celebrated the passage of the Find and Protect Foster Youth Act. He tells KCII News why the act is important, “It’s going to have an impact Nationally and won’t be just in Iowa. The long term goal not only of this legislation, but a lot of different legislation that I’ve passed, is to give people some permanency. What I hear from foster care kids themselves is, “I’d like to have a mom and dad” and ideally that would be their birth mom and dad, but if that can’t be, then some family that is going to adopt them and be loving parents, and have one home for their whole life, and one set of parents for their whole life.” Under existing law, states must implement plans to mitigate and identify cases of missing foster youth. Even so, tens of thousands of foster children have gone missing in the last two decades. The Find and Protect Foster Youth Act would require the Administration for Children and Families to report to Congress on progress toward finding missing foster youth and preventing runaways. The legislation would also establish screenings for children who return to foster care after being absent to determine whether they were victims of sex trafficking during that period.