Foster Youth Bill of Rights

When Marcellia Goodrich was growing up in Los Angeles County foster homes, identifying as queer was a source of friction. She recalls one foster mom refusing to send her to prom because she would have taken another girl as a date.

This summer has seen a lot of action around youth-centric legislation in Hawaii. In July, Gov. David Ige (D) signed a number of new laws governing the state’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

In 2001, California passed the sweeping Foster Youth Bill of Rights into law. The law’s goals were ambitious. It intended both to inform the state’s 63,000 foster youth of the full range of social services available to them as well as to clarify their basic rights in the state’s foster youth system.