April 5, 2023
The Children's League of Massachusetts is looking to legislators at the Massachusetts State House to co-sponsor An Act to eliminate disproportionality and inequities for at-risk children (S.120 / H.153). If signed into law, this legislation would require child-serving state agencies to track, analyze, and report on disproportionality and inequity in child services and create corrective action plans with oversight and support from the Office of the Child Advocate.
Currently, many vulnerable children within at- risk groups, such as children of color, children with a disability, and children who identify as LGBTQIA+, are disproportionality represented within the child welfare sector. Yet, Massachusetts state agencies lack vital data-reporting mechanisms, making it impossible to collect, compare, and analyze data across the many systems that serve vulnerable children and families and difficult to understand how to alleviate the disproportionate involvement of these vulnerable children and youth.
Passing an Act to Eliminate Disproportionality and Inequities for At-Risk Children would address this issue and drastically improve our ability to target and dismantle policies and practices that perpetuate disproportionality and systemic racism in the sector.
| **Read through CLM's Disproportionality Bill fact sheet** | **Read through CLM's testimony on this bill** |
How can YOU get involved to ensure this legislation is passed?
- Reach out to your legislators and urge them to pass the Disproportionality bill or thank them for cosponsoring.
- Find your state legislator here
- If needed, you can utilize this script to help frame your conversation
- Post across social media platforms.
- Use our Disproportionality Bill Education and Outreach Toolkit to easily post on this issue across your social media platforms
- Follow CLM on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@childrensleague_ma) so that you can reshare our posts