Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek threw her weight behind a controversial bill that would allow the state to send children in foster care to facilities in other states and change the definitions around restraints and seclusions.

The measure, House Bill 3835, is wide-ranging and 100 pages. Proponents believe it will help the state’s most vulnerable children receive mental health services and quality places to live. But advocates and others involved with the measure — including both the House and Senate chairs of the Human Services committees — oppose the measure. Opponents have said the policy changes will ultimately offer fewer protections and could mean more children are harmed.

“The goal is to improve youth access to behavioral health care,” Kotek told members of the House Rules Committee. “We know that too many children in our state have acute behavioral healthcare needs. We know our current system needs repair and is failing too many children. The status quo is unacceptable.”

Kotek, a Democrat elected in 2022, noted protecting children “transcends politics,” and is not a partisan issue. And indeed, lawmakers vehemently disagreed with each other despite party affiliation.

One component of the measure tries to clarify what is defined as wrongful use of restraint and seclusion for approximately 5,000 children placed in the state’s care.

“I want to ensure our regulatory environment both protects children by preventing abuse when in care, and provides clear guidance for the individuals providing the care so they can do their jobs,” Kotek said. “And let me be clear, I do not support inappropriate restraint or abuse. What I do support is a system with strong crisis intervention, training, clear and practical guidelines and accountability.”

A slew of other speakers supported the governor’s view, including Ajit Jetmalani, a doctor at Oregon Health & Science University, who said there were too many kids being housed in emergency rooms due to lack of more appropriate placements. Part of the reason, he said, is that it’s hard to find staff to work in treatment facilities. Jetmalani said that’s because there are currently so many regulations that staff are worried they will be penalized for child abuse for trying to de-escalate volatile situations.

“This overall emphasis on a creation of fear of punishment as a primary lever to somehow influence human behavior is the unintended consequence of our current regulatory environment,” Jetmalani testified, saying it’s caused a “demoralization of staff, staff turnover, closing of programs.”

Tom Stenson, an attorney with Disability Rights Oregon, said he spent hours analyzing the policy changes made in the measure.

“Most supporters of this bill are people of good faith who have been told by others what the bill does,” he said. “They have been told that this bill makes children safer.”

Stenson said the bottom line comes down to whose analysis people trust.

“Whether you trust the advocates and the children who are here speaking for themselves or whether you trust bureaucrats,” he said. “DHS has left a long trail of broken lives as a result of poor decisions and coverups from its administrators. DHS administrators come to the Legislature and give solemn declarations of how they want to protect children. If solemn declarations made children safe, we would have the safest children in the world.”

Disability Rights Oregon opposes the measure.

The measure would also allow Oregon the ability to send children out of state for care more easily. State law currently allows officials to send kids out of state, but the facility where they are going must first go through a licensing process and meet certain standards.

Proponents of the measure promised kids would fare better than the last time Oregon sent children in foster care elsewhere. They argued it would allow children to receive specialized care unavailable in Oregon. Proponents also said the new legislation contains safeguards to prevent abuse. Still, many of the requirements being proposed are similar to past practices.

After intense media and legislative scrutiny on the practice of sending children in state care outside of Oregon, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden led a bipartisan investigation into the practice and focused on many of the places where Oregon youth were sent.

On Monday, Stenson recalled some of those findings, quoting the report, “The operating model for these facilities is to warehouse as many kids as possible while keeping costs low in order to maximize profits. Too often, abuse and neglect is the norm at these facilities and they are set up to let this happen.”

The state recently settled a civil lawsuit brought, in part, by Disability Rights Oregon, demanding that the state lower rates of mistreatment of children placed in foster care. As part of the settlement, an expert has been appointed to oversee the state’s child welfare system and work toward improving it.

DHS supports the measure.

Kotek has fired the heads of several state agencies recently, including at the Oregon Youth Authority, the public defense commission and the Oregon state hospital. But in an interview last month, Kotek said that despite the well-documented systemic problems inside Oregon’s child welfare system, she supports the agency and its director, Fariborz Pakseresht.

“The director does have my support and confidence,” Kotek said.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/12/oregon-governor-testifies-for-controversial-bill-focusing-on-foster-kids/