Ohio GOP introduce bills to protect, provide for children

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — There are new efforts at the statehouse to support Ohio’s youth with at least six new Republican-led bills in the pipeline.

“Our number one concern is the safety and security of our most vulnerable kids in the state,” Rep. Andrea White (R-Kettering) said.

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White is a joint sponsor on all six bills. She is working on House Bill 583 with Rep. Phil Plummer (R-Dayton) to increase accountability and transparency for juvenile group homes.

“We are going to put the guardrails around this and make this a quality program, not just a business where somebody is making a lot of money off the state and not providing the proper care and supervision for these kids,” Plummer said.

About 1,800 children live in a group home in Ohio. There are about 200 juvenile group homes in Ohio; 80 of those are in Montgomery County alone.

“We don’t want to just create small businesses for people,” Plummer said. “We want to create good environments for the poor kids who have nowhere else to go.”

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The bill would do things like increase staff training requirements, create a “more robust” complaint process for when there are issues, and ensure that schools are notified of a student’s situation if they are in a group home.

“If the school has no idea what’s going on with that child, it’s going to make it very difficult for them to be a key partner in that child’s healing and growth,” White said.

House Bill 580 is sponsored by White and Rep. Sharon Ray (R-Wadsworth) and would provide funding for childcare for foster children.

“I think anything we do to help remove roadblocks and get our kids into good, loving homes is something that is going to be good for the child, good for the system, good for the state of Ohio,” Ray said.

White said there are about 16,700 kids in children services for foster care, and only about 7,000 licensed family homes.

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“This is about opening doors,” White said. “Opening more doors to homes for kids that desperately need a temporary place to live.”

She said another important piece to supporting families is childcare, which is why four other bills aim to address that.

House Bill 484 sponsored by White and Rep. Bill Roemer (R-Richfield) would create a grant program to help Ohio businesses increase their childcare capacity. Roemer said on-site childcare is better for the child because it decreases stress, better for the parent for things like convenience, and better for the employer as it can harness more productivity.

“It’s a win, win, win,” Roemer said. “Child, family and employer.”

The grants in the bill are up to $750,000, and there must be at least one in each of the seven JobsOhio regions in the state.

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“It ensures that there will benefits across the state of Ohio,” Roemer said.

Leaders on both side of the aisle agree it is an important issue that needs to be addressed from all angles.

“Getting more support to children both in foster care but also to all of Ohio’s children,” Ohio House Minority Leader Rep. Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) said. “There’s a lot of need out here, we still have one in five children in the state who live in poverty.”

“We need to do more, frankly, we don’t need to do less,” Gov. Mike DeWine said. “We just have to continue to do those things, that’s our future. There’s a reason I devoted my entire State of the State speech to children, that is where our future is.”

The other bills that address childcare include House Bill 576, House Bill 577, and House Bill 578.

White said her goal is to get the conversation started on several of these topics and, if they do not pass this General Assembly, possibly get some of these provisions passed in next year’s budget.

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