MN HF4217

Modifies recruitment specialist duties to focus on identifying, engaging, and supporting relatives and fictive kin as placement resources, and ensuring foster and adoptive families reflect racial and ethnic diversity of children in need.

Requires child-placing agencies to develop written recruitment plans including strategies for finding and supporting relatives and fictive kin, targeted recruitment for specific racial and ethnic communities, and data tracking on diversity of families served compared to children in need.

Requires child-placing agencies to develop written plans for training and supporting adoptive and foster families, with staff capacity to understand and validate children's cultural needs.

Appropriates $500,000 in fiscal year 2023 from the general fund to the Department of Human Services for grants to community-based organizations to recruit and support foster and adoptive families reflecting racial and ethnic backgrounds of children in need.

Grant recipients must conduct recruitment through partnerships with public and private agencies and tribes, gather and report data on racial and ethnic backgrounds of licensed foster and adoptive families, and evaluate recruitment effectiveness.