Committee adopts amendment and advances bill to bar child protection screening when lack of services prevents safe return home

Representative Kraft presented House File 16 14, a bill that would put into statute an existing 2023 policy and clarify that counties should not screen families into child protection when parents are actively seeking services but lack timely access to appropriate children's mental health care or placement options. The sponsor and several testifiers said the change is intended to prevent parents from being blamed or threatened with child protection reports when service capacity is not available.

Testimony included personal accounts and organizational perspectives. Sue Abderholden, executive director of NAMI Minnesota, described repeated calls from parents whose children have extreme behaviors and who have placed their children on waiting lists for residential treatment or intensive services. "We are not talking about simple depression... We are talking about children who are so dysregulated... they are lashing out," Abderholden said, adding that families are highly engaged in pursuing services and should not be treated as neglectful because services are unavailable. Michelle Wood described her daughter's repeated hospitalizations and long wait times for residential placement; she said hospital staff threatened to report the family to child protection even while the family worked with case managers and insurers to find placements. Lisa Anthony Thomas of the Office of the Ombudsman for Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities told the committee the office supports the bill because counties sometimes treat the screening guidelines as non‑binding and continue to screen these families into protection despite policy language.

The committee discussed placement shortages, the effect of screening on families' jobs and custody, and the limits of child protection as a mechanism to create services. The sponsor said the bill moves a department policy into statute and that after discussion the language was relocated from section 260C to 260E in statute during amendment drafting. The committee adopted the DE1 amendment and re‑referred House File 16 14 to the Committee on Judiciary, Finance and Civil Law.