Columnist Sandy Thompson: Children in need score twice in Nevada Legislature

Sandy Thompson

Friday, June 8, 2001 | 5:30 a.m.

Sandy Thompson is vice president/associate editor of the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached at 259-4025 or by e-mail at thompson@lasvegassun.com

WHEN JANE Horner talked, Nevada legislators listened.

Horner is not a powerful lobbyist or political campaign contributor. She is a Boulder City grandmother who last year began a crusade to get kinship care for grandparents and relatives caring for children who have been abandoned/neglected by their parents. She wanted them to get the same reimbursements as foster parents who otherwise would be caring for these children.

Horner researched the issue and dogged the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services. She won over officials with her knowledge, common-sense approach and perseverance. Her efforts led to the introduction and passage of Assembly Bill 15, which would provide kinship care funds to grandparents and relatives over the age of 62. Horner and her family recently looked on as Gov. Kenny Guinn signed the bill into law, which goes into effect Oct. 1.

Horner says $3.7 million will be available in kinship care funds. Relatives must have legal guardianship of the children in their care and must be licensed according to the same criteria as nonrelative foster homes. In the long run, this will mean fewer children in the child welfare system.

Horner does not consider her efforts a one-woman fight, although she admits that one person can make a difference. "I feel relieved and grateful that I was here to do something for grandparents. Before this, there was nothing."

She credits the support of Steve Shaw, administrator of DCFS; Mike Willden of the state welfare division and Stu Fredlund of DCFS. She also cites two Democrat assemblywomen from Las Vegas -- Chris Giunchigliani for introducing the bill and Barbara Buckley, at whose child welfare subcommittee hearings Horner testified about the need for kinship care. That got the ball rolling, Horner says.

An estimated 2 million children nationwide are being raised by grandparents or other relatives. Only 25 states have some sort of kinship care.

Horner undertook the kinship care crusade in Nevada after she began caring for her 5-year-old granddaughter and 14-year-old grandson.

Horner says children left in the care of relatives for most of their lives are denied the security of a permanent home because the laws protect the rights of parents who may have abandoned and abused them, but not the rights of children and relatives who care for them. The kinship care law, she says, will help lead to permanency and stability for these children.

Lost in the headlines amid all the hoopla over education funding and reapportionment was another significant piece of legislation affecting children that was passed in the waning minutes of the 2001 Legislature. The bill to transfer child welfare services to Clark and Washoe counties will be a major boost to providing better services -- and hopefully permanency -- for children in foster care.

As with kinship care, this is only a start. Now the real work begins on making the new child welfare system a seamless one that truly serves the needs of children.

In these two cases, children fared well in the Legislature. It's about time.