HB 1675 was proposed in response to reports of child abuse and neglect in adoptive homes in Washington state. The bill aimed to strengthen oversight of child placing agencies and standards for prospective adoptive families. Specifically, it called for improved tracking of disrupted adoptions, higher qualifications for home study evaluators, and assessing adoptive parents' disciplinary practices. The bill received support from advocacy groups and passed with the goal of promoting safer and more successful adoptions.

1. Experiential Paper on House Bill 1675
Introduction In response to various issues noted by the Office of the Family and
Children’ s Ombudsman (OFCO) about the cases of brutal child neglect and abuse of
adopted children, Washington’ s governor requested that OFCO and Department of Social
and Health Services (DSHS) Children’ s Administration (CA) commence a workgroup for
examining these issues. The workgroup was also requested to make necessary
recommendations in order to enhance the process of adoption and safeguard children
(House Judiciary, 2013). Besides the representatives from OFCO and DSHS, other committee
members included assistant attorneys general, superior judge, adoptive or foster parent,
and representatives from adoption agencies among others. In this regard, this paper
critically reviews the legislation in order to lobby for its adoption.Background of HB
1675 The 2011 report of OFCO indicated a shocking cluster of severe cases of child
neglect and abuse that occurs in pre-adoptive or adoptive placements. According to the
House Committe on Higher Education (2009), 11 out of the 15 cases described in this report
took place in 2011. These child abuse and neglect cases were related to children adopted
from Washington state foster system, foreign nations, foster care systems of other states in
the US, and private adoption facilitators or agencies. It was alarming that in all cases child
neglect or abuse occurred in homes, which had been approved or inspected by private or
public child welfare agencies as suitable adoptive homes for the child (House Judiciary,
2013).The popular aspects of child neglect or abuse noticed in various cases include:
denying the child food, locking the child in a room, dishonoring the child as dishonest,
belittle remarks about the child, misstating or exaggerating the negative behaviors of the
child, emotional and physical abuse, denying the child access to toilets, compelling the child
remain outside the home, and segregating the child from the community.Summary of the HB
1675 The bill can be summarized based on three crucial elements, which include
intent, changes associated with state oversight of child placing agencies, and changes
associated with evaluating the prospective adoptive families. In relation to intent, the
Legislature understands that in is extremely important that the DSHS develop a descriptive
work plan that identifies a period and strategy to execute the reforms. According to the
Higher Education Committee (2009), this is specifically critical in ensuring that the majority
of the recommendations in the report are implemented. However, the legislature further
understands that some of these recommendations need constitutional amendments. As
such, in ensuring that these changes do not languish, the Legislature is currently making
them (Higher Education Committee, 2009).In relation to changes associated with the state

2. oversight of child placing agencies, it is the responsibility of the DSHS secretary to put in
place requirements and procedures for tracking, identifying and reporting disruption and
dissolution during child adoption (House Committe on Higher Education, 2009). The DSHS
secretary is also obligated to establish the factors resulting thereto, including requiring
standard reports from child-placing agencies linked to children placed for adoption. HB
1675 also requires that the adoption data cards, which are furnished by the Department of
Health (DOH) to every county clerk, be completed and filed in every adoption. These cards
must also show whether the adopted child has initially been adopted. According to the
Senate Committee (2009), the DOH and DSHS must share this data. DSHS integrates this
data when reporting and tracking adoption dissolution and disruption.In relation to
changes associated with evaluating prospective adoptive families, the bill requires that
changes be made to the qualifications for people conducting adoption home studies and
post placement reports (House Committe on Higher Education, 2009). According to the
Judiciary Committe (2013), such individuals must be in possession of a master’ s degree in
social work or associated field with an experience of one in social work. Individuals having
bachelor’ s degree with an experience of two years in social work are also deemed qualified
to perform adoption home studies.The court is no longer allowed to approve an individual
who is not fulfilling these experiential or educational requirements. The inquiry and study
needed for the pre-placement report, concerning the suitability of the prospective adoptive
parent, need to include an examination of the punishment and disciplinary practices and
philosophies of the prospective adoptive parent, besides the areas of inquiry, which are
already required, like family life, home environment, facilities and resources. Alternatively,
the post-placement report needs to contain all considerably available information
concerning punishment and disciplinary practices, besides the present information
requirements like mental and physical condition of the child, family life, home environment,
health facilities and resources. The bill also requires that the pre-placement reports be
completed and filed in the same way completed pre-placement reports (House Judiciary,
2013).Importance of the Bill According to Senate Committee (2009), the motion for
this bill was the report on the abuse of adopted children. This report focused on what
happened to the 15 victimized children. Two out of the fifteen children died. Four were
abused sexually, and there were five other cases of abuse in which food was withheld to act
as a form of punishment resulting to the judgment of serious malnourishment (House
Committe on Higher Education, 2009). A significant number of these adoptive parents faced
prosecution. According to the House Committe on Higher Education (2009), there is no
responsibility for the state, once a child has been adopted, unless things go bad. One of the
major points of this bill was to ensure that the placement was right prior to the occurrence
of adoption. The collection of data goes a long way to enabling the comprehension of how
many, where and what things went wrong. According to House Committe on Higher
Education (2009), there is no new report obligation; instead, the reporting is accomplished
by OFCO’ s annual report.HB 1675 includes some small steps to assure the process of child
adoption is thorough (House Committe on Higher Education, 2009). In aIDition, these small
steps assure that the adoptions of children are successful and safe. Inquiring in relation to
the planned approach to punishment and discipline will put this on the radar for potential

3. parent to consider before adoption. The bill also gives social workers an opportunity to
know if the parent has given this thought. It is important to see red flags in the beginning, if
there is any. According to the Higher Education Committee (2009), there is a demand for
more adoptive parents. In aIDition, there must be apprehension for the well-being and
safety of the adopted child. This can only be achieved via the legal provisions of HB 1675.
No child coming out of the system is fully free of trauma. According to the Senate Committe
(2009), there will be challenges associated with raising any child. As such, the bill thinks
about this in advance. For instance, in 2012, there was a considerably upsetting spike in the
abuse of adopted children that included starvation, sexual abuse, locking in a closet and
beating among others. This bill deals with some of these abuses (House Committe on Higher
Education, 2009). Besides this, few amendments can be made immediately, though they will
imply that there will more amendments in future. The Ethiopian Community Seattle is one
such community expecting significant amendments in future. This is because these
amendments do not do much to prevent the abuses.The aim of this bill has a strong support
from OFCO, though the agency remains neutral on particular legislation (House Committe
on Higher Education, 2009). Understanding the attitude toward punishment and discipline
is important in making the right adoptive march. For example, a child aged 12 years who is
in the foster system due to physical abuse should not be placed with parents who strongly
propose corporal punishment. This is because it might result in a successful adoptive match.
According to the Judiciary Committee (2013), data concerning disrupted and failed
adoptions is required. In fact, both the reasons and numbers of failed and disrupted
adoptions need to be known. HB 1675 will enable the concerned bodies dealing with child
adoption to know all the reasons and numbers of failed and disrupted adoptions. The bill
achieves this via the amendment of DOH data card, and assigning DSHS to track disruptions.
According to the House Committe on Higher Education (2009), the DSHS is uniquely
positioned to be capable of doing this since it already has a direct involvement with the
adoptions of foster children. The House Committe on Higher Education (2009) also
mentioned that the unique position of DSHS arises from the fact that it has oversight of the
private placement agency. However, HB 1675 requires that all pre-placement reports,
whether incomplete or complete, be filed. The OFCO welcomes the reporting obligation as
fully consistent with its mission. Despite HB 1675 not aIDressing all the recommendations,
many of these recommendations seem no to require any legislative effort.Ways of Bettering
HB 1675 The various ways through which the legislation can be made better can be
categorized based on state oversight of child placing agencies, assessing prospective
adoptive families, and training and post adoption support services.The first way, in relation
to state oversight of child pacing agencies, will be strengthening these agencies that provide
adoption services be enacting administrative rules that are consistent with the federal laws
and regulations, and The Hague Convention (House Committe on Higher Education, 2009).
The Departments will have to distribute and develop a list of important concerns
concerning troubled adoptions. In aIDition, adoption should also establish a process of
tracking adoption dissolution and disruption.The second way in which HB 1675 deals with
adoption problem, in relation to assessing prospective adoptive families, will be
strengthening the qualifications for people performing adoption home studies and post-

4. placement reports (Higher Education Committee, 2009). HB 1675 has significantly
improved the requirements for home studies. In aIDition, it will also establish necessary
procedures ensuring that every home studies are recorded or filed. According to the Higher
Education Committee (2009), Child Adoption (CA) should establish an internal committee
in order to make decisions for dependent children.The third way in which HB deals with the
problem, in relation to training and post-adoption services will be improving preparation
and training for the prospective adoptive parents. It will achieve this via creating minimum
training requirements for child placing staff, and providing training to professionals who
are indirectly or directly involved with process of adoption. According to Higher Education
Committee (2009), HB 1675 also improves support services for adoptive
families.Progression of HB 1675 It is also important to note that the bill has been
undergoing various amendments. On 5 February 2013, the first reading of the bill was
referred to the House Judiciary Committee (House Committe on Higher Education, 2009).
This was the initial introduction of the bill. On February 20, 2013, the public hearing and
executive action was taken in the House Committee on Higher Education. The Executive
action was taken on February 21. The bill was passed to Rules Committee for second
reading on 22 February 2013. The Rules Committee placed the bill on second reading on 5
March 2013. One day later, substitution occurred. The substitutions involved adopting floor
amendments, and suspending the rules. It was placed on third reading (House Committe on
Higher Education, 2009). The bill passed with 90 yeas against 7 nays. On March 8, 2013, the
bill was received in the Senate Human Services & Corrections Committee. The most recent
event about the bill was on March 21, 2013, which was a public hearing in the Senate
Committee on Human Services & Corrections.Conclusion The 2011 report of OFCO
indicated a shocking cluster of severe cases of child neglect and abuse that occurs in pre-
adoptive or adoptive placements. HB 1675 can be summarized based on three crucial
elements, which include intent, changes associated with state oversight of child placing
agencies, and changes associated with evaluating the prospective adoptive families. In
relation to intent, the Legislature understands that in is extremely important that the DSHS
develop a descriptive work plan that identifies a period and strategy to execute the reforms.
The motion for this bill was the report on the abuse of adopted children. HB 1675 includes
some small steps to assure the process of child adoption is thorough. The aim of this bill has
a strong support from OFCO, though the agency remains neutral on particular legislation.
Understanding the attitude toward punishment and discipline is important in making the
right adoptive march. The various ways through which the legislation can be made better
can be categorized based on state oversight of child placing agencies, assessing prospective
adoptive families, and training and post adoption support services. ReferencesHigher
Education Committee. (2009). HB 1675. Washington: Washington State House of
Representatives Office of Program Research.House Committe on Higher Education. (2009).
House Bill Report. Washington: House Committe.House Judiciary. (2013). Engrossed
Substitute House Bill 1675. Washington: House Judicary.Judiciary Committe. (2013). HB
1675. Washington: Judiciary Committe.Senate Committe. (2009). Senate Bill Report HB
1675. Washington: Senate Committee. “Looking for a Similar Assignment? Get Expert Help
at an Amazing Discount!”