If a prospective foster parent lived in another state within the last 5 years, their current state must check the child abuse & neglect registry from their prior state(s) before approving them as foster parents.
This sounds like a good idea. But in practice, inconsistent processes across states for fulfilling these requests are putting children at risk, and cause some of the most significant delays in licensing (paying) foster parents, particularly for kinship caregivers who already have placement of children but who do not receive any financial support until they are licensed.
Our goal is for every child welfare system to adopt these 5 promising practices for Background Checks: accept attestation of consent, no notarized or witnessed signatures, no fees, general inbox for receiving requests, and accept electronic requests.
Want to report an update or error? Please email updates@childwelfareplaybook.com