Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed a bill (SF 2096) into law that will change foster parent training requirements.
The current 30-hour requirement will be eliminated. Instead, the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will determine a training plan for each prospective foster parent. The agency will consider an applicant's professional and lived experience.
In a statement, Reynolds said the new law modernizes the training requirements and will reduce barriers for prospective foster parents.
Home checks, background checks and other safety parameters will still be required. Several topics will also be required for training, including:
- Attachment, grief and loss
- Overview of child welfare
- Trauma and the effect on child development
- Behavior management
- Biological parent contact and supporting a child's family of origin
How do Iowans become foster parents?
It currently takes six to nine months to become a foster parent. That includes time to complete the training curriculum, background checks, home study and other requirements. After that is completed, Iowa HHS approves the license.
Four Oaks, the nonprofit contracted to train foster and adoptive parents in Iowa, supports dropping the required hours of training in order to tailor training to each person.
After the Iowa Senate passed the bill in February, Four Oaks President and CEO Mary Beth O'Neill told IPR News that her agency has seen people quit during the training process.
"Especially with professional backgrounds," O'Neill said. "And so I want people to become foster parents. I want them to use their skills that they have."
O'Neill hopes more people will become interested in being a foster parent in Iowa, especially because there is a foster parent shortage in the state.
"We would love to have at least 2,000 more families to care for kids throughout the state," she said.
At the bill signing ceremony Tuesday, Janée Harvey, director of the Division of Family Well-Being and Protection at Iowa HHS, said the law could cut the time to become a foster parent to three or four months.
"We no longer need to make a wannabe foster care parent who's a nurse, she doesn't have to take CPR anymore," Harvey said. "Somebody who might be a clinical social worker, so maybe has some professional skills that transfer into being a foster parent, we can modify that curriculum."
Harvey said training can be customized to the needs of the children that foster parents intend to care for. For example, if a foster parent is interested in caring for a teenager, infant training may not be necessary.
Foster parents are required to take six hours of training each year that they are licensed. The law will also have Iowa HHS determine what would be required.
How will Iowa HHS determine competency?
Reynolds said the new law will create a competency-based training model. It's up to Iowa HHS to determine the training course for each applicant, according to the law. The agency must consider the following:
- Relevant training and experience of applicant
- Circumstances of foster kid
- Circumstances of foster parent
The law, which goes into effect July 1, directs Iowa HHS to create rules to implement the new law.
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Radio Iowa's O. Kay Henderson contributed to this story.
