TULSA, OKLA. (KTUL) — The Oklahoma legislative session starts today and one important topic that’s being addressed is child welfare.
House Bill 1100 would require clear and convincing evidence for the state to keep a child away from their parent or guardian.
Right now, the legal standard is that if it’s more probable than not that there was abuse or misconduct, the state could justify keeping a child from their family.
“I’m trying to close this gap of children wrongfully being removed while making sure that children do need to be removed, hopefully temporarily, until the family can be safely restored to each other or if they need to be adopted to a safer home,” said State Representative Gabe Woolley, the author of House Bill 1100.
State Representative Gabe Woolley
He says that if the bill passes, Child Protective Services would still be able to intervene and separate kids from their families if there’s evidence of misconduct, but the courts would have to review the case every six months, and they would have to prove that there is actual abuse taking place, in order to keep a child away from their family.
“There’s an ability for lawsuits and there’s the child could be returned if the court is not taking that burden of proof in that timeline seriously,” said Wooley.
According to okhouse.gov, this bill would make it so that if DHS fails to meet this new standard and refuses to return a child, the agency employee responsible for making that decision could face felony kidnapping charges.
