The Legislative Assembly finds that:

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(1) There is growing empirical evidence that severe trauma may result when children are removed from their families, and that this trauma may give rise to negative outcomes that last a lifetime, cause intergenerational patterns of addiction, abuse and neglect, and give rise to disrupted and broken families.

(2) Improving permanency outcomes for children is best accomplished by providing services that allow children to remain with their families and in their homes when appropriate and safe.

(3) Allowing families to remain intact while parents undergo mental health or addiction treatment, take steps to move out of poverty by obtaining employment and housing or receive family strengthening services preserves child-parent bonds with improved outcomes for children and families and positive long-term societal effects.

(4) When placement in foster or substitute care outside the home must occur, this can be less traumatic and of shorter duration with the provision of family-focused treatment and services, and the provision of routine family contact and visitation as frequently as is appropriate. After children are returned to the family, they should receive continuing services to ensure safety and stabilization.

(5) Children should receive continuing services sufficient to achieve stabilization after returning to the community.

(6) A new systemwide model for providing child welfare services should be adopted that provides services and supports that have proved effective in keeping children safely with their parents, that reduces children’s risk of future entry into the criminal justice and child welfare systems, that lowers the risk of intergenerational abuse and that decreases the associated human and economic costs.

(7) The efficacy of programs that allow families to remain together or that assist families with reunification has been demonstrated by pilot programs, including one that has operated in Jackson County since 2007 and other national best practice models.

(8) Foster care savings that are reinvested can enhance and expand child welfare services.

(9) Housing is essential to the safe reduction of the number of children in foster care. Partnerships between affordable housing providers and nonprofit service agencies must be formed where possible. Tenancy requirements and exclusion criteria related to criminal, credit and tenant histories, particularly when associated with substance abuse, must be reevaluated and modified where possible. [2011 c.568 § 3]