Lawmakers approve bans on re-homing

On March 26, one of a pair of bills addressing rehoming of adoptive children in Arkansas was referred back to committee for amendment while another was sent to the governor’s office. Lawmakers amended HB1676 twice — once to add the name of a cosponsor and a second time to make substantive changes to the language of the bill. This story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette incorrectly described the two bills’ status.

A pair of bills aimed at banning the “re-homing” of adopted children in Arkansas sailed through the state Senate on Thursday and will soon be heading to the governor’s desk.

The legislation would make it a felony for an adoptive parent to permanently give adopted children to a nonrelative without court approval and require parents receiving state adoption subsidies to inform state officials that a child is no longer in their care.

House bills 1648 and 1676 were quickly drafted at the start of this month after lawmakers learned of the re-homing and eventual sexual assault of a legislator’s adopted daughter. Both bills passed unanimously; there was no debate.

The bills will return to the House so the name of the Senate sponsors can be added. Gov. Asa Hutchinson has indicated support for both measures.

As late as February, “re-homing” was a little-known term.

But that changed March 3, the day the Arkansas Times published a piece detailing how Rep. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, re-homed his two adopted daughters, ages 3 and 5, in 2013. The 5-year-old was sexually assaulted after the Harrises gave her away.

“We wouldn’t have known about the issue if what happened had not happened. Very few legislators knew re-homing was even possible,” Rep. Greg Leding said. “We learned about the issue I think with only four days left to file a bill. … We knew we had to get something done fairly quickly.”

Leding, D-Fayetteville, filed HB1648 the day after the story’s publication, as did the sponsor of HB1676, Rep. David Meeks, R-Conway.

In under a month, the pair of bills are near law.

Lawmakers, Department of Human Services officials and representatives of the governor’s office collaborated, substantially changing the language of the legislation to avoid cutting out close family members from helping during an adoption.

Once law, HB1676 would make it a felony for an adoptive parent to re-home a child, or help facilitate such a transaction, save for temporary stays, medical emergencies or for a transfer to a close, biological family member.

HB1676 and HB1648 both require that DHS provide services for families having difficulties adjusting to an adoption.

DHS has policies to support post-adoption problems but are not required by state law to provide those services.

HB1648 spells out the processes by which adoptive parents can receive state subsidies and requires parents to sign an affidavit saying that they will not re-home the children.

Parents will have to renew the subsidy and the contract every year. Falsifying an affidavit is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

Leding said that given the support from Hutchinson’s office, as well as broad backing from legislators in both parties, the bills’ quick march through the two chambers was not a surprise.

But Leding said he’s never seen anything like it in his three terms as a legislator.

“Topical issues come up fairly often,” Leding said. “But trying to recall if there has been a similar situation where something arose and legislation was presented and passed this quickly, nothing is coming immediately to mind.”

Harris, co-owner of the Growing God’s Kingdom preschool in West Fork, voted for the bills, which would have criminalized his own actions from 2013 and early 2014.

Harris has said the two preschool-age girls had been scarred by past abuse and were too difficult for him and his wife to raise, turning his life into a “nightmare” and a “living hell.”

The lawmaker said DHS fought to prevent him from adopting the girls, then threatened to go after him for child abandonment when he tried to give the girls back to the state.

He said DHS misled him about the mental and emotional disorders that the children suffered and left him with no other option but to give the girls away. Eric Cameron Francis and his wife were raising three children who had been adopted from abroad, Harris has said, adding that he thought giving the girls to the Francis family was a “perfect” solution to his problem.

Harris said he had no idea that Francis posed a threat to children.

Francis, a former teacher at Growing God’s Kingdom, was arrested last April and accused of molesting three girls. He pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault and is serving a 40-year sentence.

The controversy surrounding Harris has led some people to call for his resignation; more than 11,000 people have signed a petition at change.org urging Harris to step down. A fellow legislator, Rep. Eddie Armstrong, D-Little Rock, suggested that Harris resign, as well.

Since then, Harris has remained in the Arkansas Legislature, though he has stepped down from his post as vice chairman of the House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative & Military Affairs Committee. He also is leaving the legislative Joint Performance Review Committee.

Both committees have oversight over DHS.

The controversy also prompted Hutchinson to call for an “independent review” of the state’s child welfare system and DHS as a whole.

On Monday, Hutchinson named Paul Vincent, a child social services policy analyst, and former head of the state social services for the state of Alabama, to conduct the review of DHS.

Reached by the phone Thursday, Vincent said that despite a decades, long career in social services, he hadn’t encountered the “re-homing” concept until last year.

“It doesn’t normally come up in the consultant circles I’ve been involved in,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens informally from time to time, but I’ve never encountered it… it’s not to suggest it’s not more common than people know.”

The review will take about eight weeks, Vincent said, and is being financed by a division of the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Vincent said he will have to review the agency’s policies and procedures, test how they are followed and how effective they are and then interview people who interact with DHS, including judges, attorneys and children’s advocates.

The consultant said he has conducted similar reviews of social service agencies in about a third of the states.

“They are very labor intensive and very time consuming,” he said. “In most systems we’ve worked in, [financial] resources have been a challenge for the system. It’s not to say they still can’t do good work, but there’s a point at which systems hit a ceiling of what they’re available to do.”

Vincent said he will come to Arkansas and begin his review in the next few weeks.

Leding said that there is still work to be done on adoptive and family services, but that given the short time frame they had, it was more important to pass good legislation than large legislation.

“I think there will be further discussion during the interim to look at this,” Leding said. “We didn’t have the time to truly study and create an exhaustive policy … we can come back and look at it.”

Upcoming Events