Help! HB443-Del.Toscano needs family stories now!

Denial of Adoption Assistance based on Custody

HB443 – The “Brick Wall” bill that builds a wall, denying adoption assistance to families who are forced by DSS to take custody of foster children before the adoption is finalized.

Dear Friends,

I have heard stories all over Virginia about families who are denied adoption assistance for their special needs child because they were forced to take legal custody of their child before the adoption was complete. Frequently these are relatives, kinship care or foster families. This was the law in Virginia, but there is a crack, an opportunity for change.

Federal law does not allow special needs children to be defined based on custody. Due to that ruling this spring, Virginia Code is being changed now by HB443 (Sponsored by Del. Toscano) but with a few lines that will still allow this denial of assistance to families forced to take custody before their child’s adoption is complete. If we don’t tell our stories now, the bill will go through as written this week and continue to allow DSS employees to force families to choose between losing their child or agreeing to take custody and forfeiting any hope of adoption assistance.

You don’t have to understand the bill (but please follow the below link so you can read it) but please consider calling Del. Toscano to tell him your story. He understands the need for confidentiality and has agreed to respect it. He just needs to know this is really happening to families and he needs to know NOW, before the bill progresses any more.

Here is his contact information: Just a call or e-mail is all he needs – Today if possible!

• Del. David J. Toscano: 804-698-1057, deldtoscano@house.state.va.us
• Legislative Aide – Sarah A. Buckley, sarah@davidToscano.com

If you don’t feel comfortable contacting his office, please feel free to contact me. Please let me know you contacted his office with a story or your legislator with a request.

Del. Toscano is also specifically interested in knowing why the GAL’s and judges don’t stop this practice. I tried to explain families are truly afraid of losing their children if they complain about what is happening.

Del. Toscano knows my son’s story and knows this legislation will be too late to help my son at all. I am pushing this for all the other children and families that qualify for the services and assistance this bill will provide, but are being unfairly denied those services and assistance.(which apparently qualifies as “no fiscal impact” so it won’t stop the bill.) I can’t fix everything in this world, but I am determined to do this. I need your names, your faces, your stories. If we stand together this change will happen now.

Please feel free to forward this to anyone who might have a story to share or through any list-serves that adoptive families of special needs children might be on. Having just 5 more stories will change this bill, having 10 will make sure we never have to fight this battle again. (Bill progress & Status Updates)

Also feel free to contact your own representatives and let them know you support HB443 with changes that will prevent families forced to take custody from being denied adoption assistance. Click here to determine who your representative is.

Thanks,
Susan Lawrence
1748 Big HIll Rd.
Lexington, VA 24450
540-464-5797 – H
540-460-7055 – C
lawrences@rockbridge.net

If you don’t have a story, but just want to support changes in the bill because you know my son and our family or another family, please call your legislators and ask that the HB443 be fixed so families like us are not forced out of the group already qualifying for adoption assistance.This is why so many children in Virginia languish in foster care. This bill will not be considered to have a fiscal impact, even when it is fixed – because the children involved were already in the original pool to be served.
Contact your VA General Assembly Legislator!