Missouri

The Missouri House of Representatives unanimously passed two bills on Jan. 27 that would increase financial support for foster and adoptive parents. Now, they await approval by the Senate. House Bill 429 would provide a tax deduction for foster parents — $2,500 for a single parent, $5,000 for a married couple — who have been caretaking for at least six months.

Unless the Missouri state Senate balks, families that adopt children, foster them or care for relatives’ children will have more money from the state, come July 1, to help make ends meet.

At the start of the 2019 school year, I set out on a mission. I was going to get back into a four-year university and start my life again. My first year of college in 2018 was full of bad relationships, depression and several address changes.

Child welfare is personal for Ian Forber-Pratt, who was adopted from India and brought to the United States as an infant with his sister. With a master’s degree in social work, he’s spent his life crisscrossing the globe to create better outcomes for children, even helping pass legislation that built a national foster care program in India.

Missouri has reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit that litigants hope will set some precedent on a once-hot-button subject in child welfare: the use of psychotropic medication to treat youth in foster care.

After three years on the job, the Milwaukee County official who oversees juvenile justice finds his system at a crossroads. The Wisconsin state legislature passed a bill last March closing two youth prisons after a criminal probe and multiple lawsuits alleged abuse and neglect of youth, alarming lawmakers.

They call it “the neglected epidemic.” An estimated 49 million Americans, especially in rural areas and the West, live in areas facing a shortage of dentists. Worse, many insurance plans don’t include dental benefits, and those that do often only cover the most severe issues.