Alabama

Alabama’s Department of Youth Services can now hire people with previous findings of neglect, which once made applicants ineligible.

In 2022, The Imprint reported on state policies that used child protective services to target transgender youth and their families.

Alabama’s child welfare agency unnecessarily “segregates” foster youth with mental health problems in a complex of 19 psychiatric institutions, when most could be cared for in the community, according to a class-action lawsuit filed today.

Since the U.S. legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, several states have passed laws allowing publicly funded child welfare organizations to exclude millions of LGBTQ adults as potential foster parents. This, combined with a Trump administration executive order on religious liberty, is cause for concern over the future of child welfare programs, according to a new policy brief from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

California will prohibit state-funded or state-sponsored travel to four states have passed legislative bills deemed discriminatory against the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning) community, California’s attorney general announced on Thursday.

When the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities released its groundbreaking report this past March, it helped launch a national dialogue about child safety, and most importantly, shifted the current narrative around maltreatment-related fatalities in a significant way.