NACC joined several sign-on letters:
- Organization Support for the American Family Act – The American Family Act would make the monthly Child Tax Credit permanent.
- No Cuts or Attempts to Weaken SNAP – This letter encouraged Congress to protect and strengthen the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s (SNAP) benefits.
- Endorse the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act – The Act would codify the Protected Areas policy into law to ensure that future administrations would not be able to easily dismiss the protections in place.
- Letter to Oppose HR 32 – If passed, HR 32 could deny states and localities federal funding and impose penalties on state and city governments.
- Welfare and Control: The U.S. Child Welfare System – This letter was a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty.
- Protect Pell from Cuts – The letter calls on Congress to fully fund the Pell Grant program and reject any proposed cuts to the program.
- Reconnecting Youth Campaign’s Fiscal Year 2026 Appropriations Letter – The letter calls on Congress to pass the fiscal year 2025 appropriations bill and provide investments for programs serving Opportunity Youth as they consider appropriations for fiscal year 2026.
- Child Welfare Reconciliation Sign-On – This letter highlights the importance of key programs for children and families and was sent to the House and Senate leadership.
- Endorse the Bipartisan American Dream and Promise Act – The Act would provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as Children, as well as recipients of Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure beneficiaries.
- Support for the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act – The Act would raise the amount of assets Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients can save without jeopardizing their vital SSI benefits.
- Federal Budget Sign-On – This letter urges Congress to keep funding for affordable housing, homelessness, and other community development resources. It also urges them to ensure vital programs receive the highest allocation of discretionary funds possible in fiscal year 2025.
Counsel for Kids Legislative Updates:
State legislative champions strive to establish and improve the quality of legal representation for children in child protection court proceedings. Check out the February 2025 edition of the Advocate for bills filed earlier this year in Hawaii, Indiana, Missouri, and Montana.
Since the Counsel for Kids Campaign launched in 2021 states have proposed bills to centralize legal services and oversight to ensure uniform high-quality service delivery. Each year there are proposals to transition best interest models to client-directed legal representation models. We expect and encourage these trends to continue as states recognize the best practice of centralized children’s law offices and high-quality client-centered legal representation.
There remain 13 states where 100% of children are not guaranteed legal representation throughout all stages of a child protection court proceeding. This campaign is committed to changing that. Find out how you can help here. See below for recent state proposals:
Arizona House Bill 2604 would establish the Child and Family Representation Program in the Administrative Office of the Courts to help ensure uniform high-quality legal representation for children and parents. The program aims to enhance legal representation by recommending minimum training requirements, practice standards, case load maximums, fair compensation, strategies to oversee attorney performance, and alternative funding sources. The bill was unanimously passed with amendments by the House judiciary on February 12. The House appropriations unanimously passed the bill with amendments on February 19. On February 24 the bill was transferred to the House minority and majority caucuses and the rules committee.
California Assembly Bill 373 would remove statutory language that prevents children’s counsel from representing youth’s expressed wishes when those wishes conflict with the safety or protection of the youth thereby changing California’s best interest model of representation to a client-directed model of representation. On February 18 the bill was referred to the committee on judiciary and human services.
Iowa House File 373 would require the appointment of counsel for youth aged 10 and older. Children younger than 10 would be appointed counsel and a GAL. The same person may serve both roles, unless the court finds that the individual cannot adequately represent the child and their best interests. The attorney can represent multiple siblings as attorney, GAL, or both unless a conflict arises. An attorney appointed as counsel must fulfill certain duties statutorily assigned to the GAL including interviewing the child, visiting their placement, obtaining first-hand knowledge of facts and circumstances, and interviewing collaterals providing services to the child. Counsel is not required to submit written court reports. The appointment of counsel will not be terminated until the child no longer receives foster care services. The bill was assigned to the House judiciary committee.
In Texas the 89th legislature appropriations request of the Texas Indigent Defense Commission would provide funding equal to 37% of the cost of the counties providing legal representation to parents and children in child protection cases. This funding would help with the implementation of Texas SB 2120 (88th legislature) that expanded the mandate of the Texas Indigent Defense Commission to include child protection cases but appropriated no funds to carry out this new duty. With the funds the organization would increase the number and quality of attorneys practicing in family protection cases. Senate finance has considered the bill and House appropriations heard the bill on February 27.