State Advocacy

(H.247)

Current status: Sent to study by the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities

This bill creates a Stakeholders’ Commission on Family First Prevention Services and Racial Equity to ensure that key stakeholders and the public are informed about and able meaningfully to participate in the development and implementation of a prevention services plan which can both prevent child abuse and neglect and unnecessary entry into foster care for vulnerable children in Massachusetts, and reduce racial disproportionality in the Massachusetts child welfare system.

H.243/S.123

Current status: SIGNED INTO LAW
This bill removes a ban on adoptions of extended kin, including aunts, uncles, and siblings.

Read CLM's press release on the bill passing the House and Senate

H.228/S.139

Current status: Referred to Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities. Accompanied a study order by the Senate Rules Committee.
This bill requires the Office of the Child Advocate to produce a report on disproportionality and inequity in services provided by child-serving state entities.

H.248/S.85

Current status: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities, referred to Senate Ways and Means Committee
This bill codifies federal laws requiring transition plans for youth age 14 and up for housing, healthcare, and employment.

H.199/S.96

Current status: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities, referred to House and Senate Committees on Ways & Means.
This bill raises the amount of the Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) benefit available to very low-income families. The bill sets a floor for financial assistance at 50% of the federal poverty level — $960 a month for a family of three in 2022. The bill also increases financial assistance by 20% a year until grants reach 50% of the federal poverty level.

CLM has joined the Lift Our Kids coalition to support this legislation. Read more about the campaign and get bill facts here.

H.236/S.103

Current status: Referred to Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities. Accompanied a study order by the Senate Rules Committee.
This bill would establish an electronic repository of foster youth educational records.

H.212/S.87

Current status: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities, referred to House and Senate Ways and Means
This bill includes several key rights important to foster families, including: access to training and resources; the right to appropriate communication between DCF, courts, and others involved with caring for the child; the right to be free from all forms of discrimination in carrying out their duties as foster parents; and establishing a reasonable and prudent parenting standard.

Watch a recording of CLM's Legislative Briefing on the Foster Parent Bill of Rights here (May 2022)

H.266/S.120

Current status: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities; referred to House and Senate Ways & Means
This bill would create an education loan repayment program for certain eligible human service workers. This bill is led by the Providers’ Council.

H.211/S.88

Current status: Referred to the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities, extended to July 31, 2022
This bill creates a Foster Care Review Board independent of the Department of Children and Families. In Massachusetts, foster care review is housed in The Department of Children and Families (DCF), it is an internal DCF department. This structure creates challenges and potential conflicts of interest for ensuring a robust and independent review with transparency, accountability, oversight and real authority to enforce findings and recommendations. This bill, by Friends of Children, will create an independent review process that addresses these challenges both at the individual case level and at the systems level.

Read FAQ for this legislation.

H.2294/S.1440

Current status: PASSED IN THE HOUSE; referred to the Senate Rules Committee
Current Massachusetts law denies adopted persons born in Massachusetts between July 17, 1974 and January 1, 2008 access to their original birth certificates. This bill, put forth by Access Massachusetts, would allow all adopted persons equal access to their original birth certificates.

H.1795/S.1558

Current status:  Senate – Reported favorably by Public Safety and Homeland Security, referred to Senate Ways & Means. House – Referred to Joint Committee on the Judiciary, extended to June 30, 2022.
This bill requires collection and reporting of key demographic data at major decision points to better evaluate policies or practices of the juvenile justice system.

H.605/S.362/H.4795/S.2883

Current status: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Education and Referred to House and Senate Ways & Means
This bill would dramatically increase the affordability and quality of early education and child care for all Massachusetts families. The bill’s framework uses a combination of direct-to-provider funding and ongoing family financial assistance to reduce costs to families while compensating providers for the true cost of providing quality care. This bill is led by the Common Start Coalition.

H.237/S.105

Current status: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities, referred to Senate Ways and Means
This bill would eliminate the pay disparity that exists between the salaries of human services workers employed by community-based human service providers and state employees holding similar job titles who perform similar work. It would seek to eliminate the pay disparity between state workers and those at community-based human services nonprofits no later than July 1, 2027.  This bill was put forth by the Provider’s Council, of which CLM is a member.

H.1569/S.984

Current status: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, sent to Senate Ways & Means
This bill expands a juvenile judge’s authority to divert cases prior to arraignment where youth and public safety are better served through alternatives to the juvenile justice system.

Get the facts about this bill

H.4872/S.2929

Current status: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, referred to House and Senate Ways & Means Committees
This bill would build the capacity of key public-facing state agencies to meet the language access needs of an increasingly diverse population by standardizing and enforcing language access protocols and practices. This bill is led by the Mass. Law Reform Institute and Massachusetts Appleseed.

Read the Language Access and Inclusion bill cost estimate

H.648/S.286

Current status: Referred to Committee on Senate Rules
This bill limits the use of police powers in school while providing grants for districts to develop more non-policing holistic safety practices.

Get the facts

H.4291/H.4498

Current status: PASSED in the House, Referred to Senate Ways & Means
The bill creates diversion and misdemeanor options for a child charged with distributing or possessing child pornography; requires schools to provide age-appropriate education on the risks and harmful effects of the creation, possession, and distribution of sexually explicit visual depictions of minors as they relate to cyber-bullying; and closes a loophole regarding “revenge pornography” to create a felony offense when a person takes a sexually explicit image or recording that was lawfully obtained and then distributes it with the intent to harm the person depicted and without that person’s consent.

H.1709/S.937

Current status: Referred to Joint Committee on the Judiciary, extended to June 30, 2022
This bill sets the minimum age for marriage at 18 without exceptions. Currently, someone under 18 can get married with approval from a parent and a judge. The law doesn’t specify a minimum age, leaving that to the discretion of a judge. This bill is led by Unchained at Last.

Language to enact this bill was included in the FY2023 House budget and is under consideration by the budget Conference Committee.

H.588/S.290

Current status: Sent to study by the Joint Committee on Education
This bill requires schools to maintain a minimum 7:1 staffing ratio of social support staff to school resource officers. Social support staff are defined as a role that primarily provides social emotional support or mental health services to students, including but not limited to school adjustment counselors and social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

H.664/S.344

Current status: Referred to Joint Committee on Education, extended to June 10, 2022
The bill prevents students who have been merely accused of a crime from being excluded from school without any real due process, and clarifies the type of student behavior that would rise to the level of being a danger in the school to justify expulsion and suspension.

Get the facts

H.3515/S. 2276

Current status: PASSED IN THE SENATE, referred to House Ways and Means Committee
This bill creates a process for a person who is homeless or is an unaccompanied homeless youth to apply for a Massachusetts identification card and to waive any fees associated with obtaining the identification card.