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Kristyna Wentz-Graff/OPBA legislative hearing earlier this year highlighted that a child welfare watchdog doesn't have a ton of independence. -
Bradley W. Parks/OPB
The wide-ranging bill would create exceptions to send children out-of-state for care and change definitions around restraints and seclusions. Proponents believe it will help more kids get care. Some advocates are worried it will cause more harm.
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Oregon cancels contract with nonprofit that places foster care kids in unlicensed short-term rentalsOPB wrote about the nonprofit Dynamic Life Inc. last month, noting the organization grew at a shocking rate over a short time fueled by taxpayer鈥檚 dollars and placed children in unlicensed short-term rental homes. Several attorneys and children鈥檚 advocates raised questions about the type of care children were receiving when placed with Dynamic Life. -
State officials are paying a religious nonprofit more than 100 times the amount they pay foster care parents to watch vulnerable children in unlicensed short-term rental homes. -
The suit says the state Department of Human Services ignored complaints about abuse, injuries and neglect and kept children in the home. -
Lawsuit alleges the agency neglected the child with placements in foster homes with sexual and physical abuse. -
Oregon has spent more than $25 million housing 462 kids in foster care in hotels after the state promised to stop the practice as part of a legal settlement in 2018. -
A California grandmother fights to retrieve $30,000 taken by San Diego County from her grandchildren鈥檚 survivor benefits. Counties take millions of dollars in federal benefits from foster children, says a lawmaker trying to stop it. -
Some states allow children to be removed from their parents if they fail to pay the cost of foster care. But that can be hundreds of dollars a month, and it's often the poorest families who must pay. -
Plaintiffs say Oregon's child welfare system is in disarray and must better protect youth under state care. -
US senators will investigate private treatment facilities that housed Oregon children in foster careTwo U.S. Senators from the Pacific Northwest are investigating abuse at facilities that run treatment programs for children, including the center where a 9-year-old girl placed in Oregon foster care was drugged and another where a 16-year-old child was restrained for so long he suffocated to death. -
California counties regularly take the Social Security benefits of foster youth who are disabled or whose parents have died. Advocates say it amounts to children paying for their own foster care. -
Federal regulators look to regulate treatment centers that house vulnerable kids. Uvea Spezza-Lopin鈥檚 story illustrates why. -
Problems in Oregon's foster care system in recent years demonstrated the severe shortage of places to house children who have been removed from their鈥�
