Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Welcome back from lunch, folks, to human services. Today is February 26. We are going to be taking up testimony on H. Six fifty seven, our miscellaneous DCF bill. And next on the agenda, we have representatives, the director and deputy advocate from the Office of Child, Youth and Family Advocates. Would you join us at the top of the table, please?

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Good afternoon.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: The floor is yours.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: I'm sure thank you. Thank you. My name is Matthew Bernstein. I'm the child youth and family advocate for the state of Vermont.

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Hi, everyone. I'm Lauren McGill, deputy advocate with OC YFA.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Now I'm going to start by taking a sip of water and a deep breath. This is a serious undertaking. We are all involved in this, bill. And, I guess I'll say off the top, There's a lot of complex questions in this bill, and we haven't really had a chance to fully dive in. We have been in conversation with some a bunch of national experts as well on this. I think some there's already some national consensus ideas baked in here. But we're continuing to get feedback. And I guess I'll just say we reserve the right to change our minds. It's not a Don't we all? I think if you compare our previous testimony where we felt very clearly and strongly about a matter, sure, we can always be wrong, we can always change our minds. This bill is just very complex operationally. And so I just wanna highlight that at the beginning. And I think the good part about that is this is a collaborative process where we're all wading through trying to figure out the effects, both positive and negative, of this bill. All of that said, I think there's well, not I think. It is the position of this office that there are some very important elements in this bill that are really worth doing. And so we're not luckily doing up down on this whole thing today. We're still working on this. And this office will continue to work on it and pledges our support because these things are so immensely important. So that said, I think just diving in so we have a slideshow, as you may see. I wish we had a handout, but we just didn't have time. So really, we're just going to walk through, if that's all right with you all. We have comments throughout, and we'll just go through me starting on page one. That would be great. We have a couple of questions for you as well, I think. So I think we are going to leave section one to folks who know a little bit more about that. Our technical expertise on reach up is you know, we just have limited capacity to two of us. So we will defer to others on section one for the time being. Section two on page two, this is one of those big issues that is really important and really worth doing. This being ensuring that children receive the benefits to which they are entitled, and especially ensuring the way I would frame this is that children who have a deceased parent or who have a disability or who had a parent with a disability who is deceased are not treated categorically differently, especially economically speaking from children who do not meet those criteria. And we want to highlight too that there's no ill will in terms of DC. These are systems not people, as we always say, this is not a nefarious thing. DCF is not acting intentionally with ill will in this situation. I think I see it as a systemic problem that we need to kind of unwind. And so there's a couple of ways to do that. One would be in our annual report, which I do have copies today if anybody would like one. In our annual report, we we called for the governor to issue an executive order on this topic, which is one way to sort of change this. In in other words, stop DCF from from, offsetting its its budget with these children's benefits. I do think as a statutory method is better because the executive order leaves it to the whims of the current administration, whereas a statute I'm guessing maybe I don't need to educate you guys on that. A statute is more long lasting. So in general, and these sections two and three, I think we are strongly in favor. The place we wanted to highlight was on page four. Yes. So section B on page four, starting on line three.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Think that frankly, what we would

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: be most in favor of would be entirely striking section B. And the reason is that it gives a department the ability to still use these funds for certain limited purposes. And again, what we're trying to do here is have all children be treated equally. A child if the department would pay for something for a child, then they should do it for a child who has benefits, whether there's no matter the amount, I would say. And that child should be able to use those benefits for what they decide they want to use them for. And so that brings us to a philosophical issue here, which is there's not enough child centeredness, we think, in this part of the statute. For example and Lauren, maybe you want to talk about the screening piece. Well, I'll come back to that. But so Lauren can give a practical example of another recommendation we have. But we are in favor of striking B. And maybe one thing we'd replace it with is Right, I think

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: if we weren't gonna completely strike Part B or Section B, whichever the title is, it's also actually changing the language to recommend notification happens at the point of initial screening for Social Security benefits for the children in DCF custody. That is part of DCF's routine practice already. They have an initial screening to see if the children are eligible for the different types of social security benefits. And that's a critical juncture for when they become the payee or go through that process. And then if there is a point of initial screening and then the notification to the parties listed in the bill as is could happen, I think that would be an excellent point for a shared decision making, also with the youth's voice included.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Because part of what this bill does philosophically is say, the child has rights and is important. And I think we want to extend that to decision making too. And I want to highlight age and developmentally appropriate is always baked into this. And we'll say it as many times as we can. But for example, notification say a child comes into custody, DCF screens them, they think they're probably eligible for survivor's benefits. At that point, what we're saying is notification should go to the folks listed in section B, even though I know I said strike it. These people, the child, the child's parent, legal guardian, and I would have that be an and, not an or. As now, before the semicolon, they're on line six. Because as of now, they would just have to notify one of them. But I think all of those people should be notified. And it would be the child's attorney's job, having been in this position myself, to speak with the child, again, in an age appropriate way, depending on their age and development, about what this means and what they could use the money for. And so the child's input piece, I think, is critical. So does that make sense? We'll just pause there for a second. And if you went ahead without, we wouldn't stand in the way of this. But I do think that recognizing that the child, it's not just that it's their money, but it's also that they should have input and decision making to the extent possible is crucial.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Representative Noyes.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Thank you so much. I think the reason that this is in there around notifying your office is that there's one person that is screening, applying, from what I understand. And so the capacity is one person. And what my concern was is that I wanted to have notice go to someone like the office, your office, to say, okay, we're seeing a lot of applications going out, whether they're denied or are the youth being represented to the social security, something that is probably they can't do? I'm not asking you to do it either, but at least what does that look like to you? Are the applications being sent in? If there's a denial, is it appeal? What does the pill look like? And that gets into a pretty complicated process at some level. And just kind of putting it on your radar was why No.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: We appreciate that. And I think what we're proposing, to again clarify, because I think we weren't totally clear, it's really why it's three, four, and five. It's really that the department may use. That part is the part that we think is inappropriate. So the notification part that we're proposing would be, again, earlier in the process at screening. I will say that and I think to your point about the department's capacity, all the more reason why you'd want to involve a child's attorney. Because really, a lot of this is legal advice and counseling as to what this money means, how you could get it. And that's part of the duty of a children's attorney. Our office can also play a role. Think right now, one thing that I can definitely if this goes through, A, it will be very exciting just in general. And so even though we have limited capacity, we can definitely create website materials that give the basics of these things. And we are happy to if folks request our assistance beyond their attorney, we're always happy to work with folks in our extent flow of doing individual and systemic advocacy for children, youth, and families. So I think what I'm saying is everything you said, I think we want to keep. It's really the earlier part about the department may still use this for these other purposes that we are opposed. So Go

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: ahead.

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: I'm just wondering, I know you're only looking at this recently. Do we have any sense for states that have already made changes about prohibiting the state from using funds that have sort of this May language or kind of a

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: hybrid, if you will? Do you any knowledge? I think there's a couple of that. I think it's a mix. I think some still have this kind of language in there, and then others, I think there's a smaller handful that don't. But I'm not 100% up to speed on that. States do this in variety of different ways. Are 30 something states that are in the same position as Vermont right now, as in the department takes it. So we could get back to you with that information. But I do think that it's kind of a hodgepodge.

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: I will say from the national experts we have talked about, the critical part is implementation of whatever the statute says. That even if it says may or shall, it's still the implementation that has been the most work to change the larger system has been the feedback from other states that have done this already. And so it might be easy to put it in log out, but then the real hard work starts.

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: Yeah, think that's where I would think.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Yeah.

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: So where I would think these notification requirements give you a greater likelihood of success in meeting the statutory provisions if

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: all these parties are

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: aware. Because if it becomes a regular course, we'll start to see that 90% of the time the department is finding a need or 5% of the time.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: And that's maybe a good segue into section four at the bottom. I'm sorry, c four. So that's on line, same page, page four lines 18 through 21. We would recommend adding and upon reasonable request to this annual accounting. So what I mean is if I'm an attorney and I'm not, but if I'm an attorney, I am an attorney, but I'm not representing kids in the system. If I'm an attorney representing a child in the system and I know my child is receiving these benefits and say, my client is receiving these benefits and is maybe gonna age out sooner, I wanna help them plan for that day, I might like an accounting in a couple of weeks or sooner than just waiting for a year because it directly impacts my active individual. And I think the department I think DCF is complete. They have been great about working with us. There's a lot of smart technical knowledge. And they have really shown their willingness to want to work on this. So it doesn't have to be in statute, again. But I think things can always change. And I do think that having that as a statutory right would be important. I also think the annual accounting to our office will help us process and publish data on how this is being implemented. So think that's it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: You have a question?

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: I mean, would just like to add that Family Services Division has been great working with our office on individual cases where changing the payee based on what the youth needs are on a case by case basis, how they have been, and they provided documentation. They have that as well. So I think the implementation work, Representative Bishop, that we talked about, be a streamlined process if the division also has the support and resources allocated to them to implement.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Absolutely. I will say too, one of the issues we're working with them on is our shared, I think everybody shares the want to protect youth. So if a youth has, for whatever reason, a lump sum coming to them, We want to provide them with the tools so that that money doesn't just disappear in terms of their spending. But more than that, the critical element is safety, right? Because then they can become a magnet for folks with ill will, or they can become a risk for a scam, etcetera. And so that is really, I just want emphasize again, individualized developmentally appropriate work. And I've done that again when I was practicing in another state. I was working with a youth who had a million dollar settlement coming and was in recovery from substance use and was gang involved. And it's tricky. So that's a very serious example of this. But I bring that up to say it is not impossible. That is an extreme example to show there's a whole spectrum of where youth are. And the last thing we want is to rush in and say, yes, you should definitely be your own payee and take this money. And it's always gonna be to your benefit. And I think we share that with the department, we're working with them in an ongoing way to and again, that's an implementation, I think, less than the stack. It's advertisement for our work generally.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: One last question. As

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: you're talking as we're talking

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: about the reporting back to

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: the reporting department, seems like You can tell me whether my quick Google search here is accurate. I'm trying to get the universe of the number of kids. And this is referencing 90 kids in DCF custody. Do you have a range? Does that roughly sound right? Maybe 9,100 kids in DCF custody are receiving social security?

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: That's a better DCR question. We have that somewhere, but I don't have it on the top of my head. Think Last year's annual

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: it's bit lower than that, but it's around the area. Think when we did a webinar on this topic a couple of years ago, it was about 71 huge, but I'm not sure if that was inclusive of both survivor benefits and Social Security disability.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Bruce, do

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: you have something on the to that.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Yeah. I did get some information that I'll I'll share from the department on the total amount. So it's good. Thank you.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: And then rest. I'm confused because chair Wood said there was no money involved with this. So where would the money come from? Because chair Wood said this particular bill, there's no money involved. But but I'm hearing, like, there might be?

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Substrum for the witnesses? Yeah.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: I don't believe there's an appropriation to cover this. I believe my understanding, yes. Can leave it at that.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: But you did say there was not gonna be any money involved. Thanks. She said there wasn't any currently. I thought she said, I don't know, we'd have to listen to it. I think she said there isn't going to be, but we'd have to listen to it. Hopefully not, because of that stares.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Go ahead.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: So I'm moving on to section four on page five. And maybe this is a question for the committee, perhaps, Representative McGill. The age limit on line six here, 16 years or older. Frankly, I just wasn't clear on why that was the limit.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: Yeah. I would be happy to go lower. I worked with some national partners who have helped for this in other states, talked to legislators in other states. So who recommended starting at one spot to see how it goes and then look at lowering that age. I perfectly am lowering that age more.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: And I think there could be implications. I guess I'm coming at this this is another really important section of the bill that we really want to see advance. And I have a lot of experience working as an attorney when I was representing individual clients on with unaccompanied youth. And I there's a lot of different elements to it. But one reason to I think that no age limit might be appropriate is you might have a youth who In New Mexico where I used to work, a common scenario, just to make one up, would be one parent was incarcerated or unavailable or whereabouts unknown. And another had to there's a lot of border fluidity that may have changed. But for whatever reason, the other parent wasn't available either, but there was an appropriate and safe relative like an auntie or somebody like that, or even a grandparent who the child was staying with temporarily. And that child could be any age. New Mexico has this thing called a caregiver's affidavit where folks attest that the parents are unwilling or unavailable. And then the format of it is actually in the statute, and they can bring that to a medical provider or a school. And the statute says that medical provider may reasonably rely on it as accurate, and then they can get medical care. That's maybe somewhat covered under this bill. This bill covers a slightly different population, which is more youth on their own, who may be 16 is an appropriate age for or not. But I guess without overcomplicating things, which may be too late, I might be in favor of not having an age limit in this section. But I'm willing to understand that there could be complexities that we're not considering. I guess I'd just say also, we when we sent this to national folks, there was a little bit of rumbling about, well, a parent would intentionally pretend like, say their kid was homeless to obtain the benefits, etcetera. And while I can understand that conceptually, never seen that, and I'm just not sure that actually happens. Because it's yeah. I'm just not sure it's worth it in the end, but I'm willing to acknowledge that that's a concern. I'll be with that.

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: There a particular action that's listed here that you're thinking of when you're thinking of a lower age? That a child of a lower age should have access to be able to take one of these actions as opposed to waiting to age 16? You mean of the subject areas covered, like going to school, etcetera?

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: Those are

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: I mean, school is a big one, which one might argue is already covered under McKinney Vento. I think medical is one. Medical is a big one, think. Just basic medical care. You wanna encourage people to go to the doctor, not discourage them. This bill is comprehended. The areas in which it covers are wider than that, like signing a lease or financial decision. So perhaps not. There's other more important things I think that we should get to. So maybe we should continue on because I think it passes 16, that would be a great place to start. And I will say too, last year I worked with a 17 year old who this bill would have really helped. And she was living with a family friend, going to high school, working jobs. And basically, what she needed was essentially consent to medical care and was in a school program that was a career base. So was physically moving from different campuses and then also into a workplace setting. And there was a bunch of consent forms. And every time one came up, the school was sort of like, it just caused a lot of barriers. In my previous life, just worked with a lot of kids who were in similar positions and who were really incredible youth making things work. And I think we just really want to support them. So all of it would good.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: I will just note that some states have just more for the committee who have both the shelter piece. And I did send you all out the 33 other states that have this medical provision and almost 20 states that have the shelter and services. Some of them, you notice are the same states. And for the medical provision, they have a much lower age. One is even like nine years old. They're 12 or 14. So it is something we could consider.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: So page six, this is our biggest piece of feedback here. Page six, starting on line six, the department's department of family services shall develop a standardized form, and then there's a certifying process. In general, we feel that it is our office's position that bringing DCF into this process is a mistake. And that's largely because youth in these situations all of the protections for youth in these vulnerable situations are going to be there regardless of this law or not. In other words, mandatory reporting. If the department feels like there's a danger, they can investigate or assess. DCF has a lot of tools, I think, if there was a genuine safety concern. From the youth side, from a youth centered perspective, unfortunately, there's a lot of mistrust of when DCF is involved. This is, in fact, the same division. Even when economic services is involved, there's suspicion and, I think, confusion. And so if there's another way to certify this, and I also am wary of putting another responsibility under the Family Services Division. If there's another way to certify this, and I guess if you're pressing me, I would say the other standards that are already in the bill, such as the McKinney Vento one and the HOP, which Lauren knows more about, I'm not sure. This to me goes a little bit over the process is a little bit over, overly complicated. Again, maybe there's practical things I'm not thinking of, but we'd be in favor of not having DCF play a role in this part. Lauren, I'm sure

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: you'll

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Thank you. As in a previous role, I was the director of youth shelters, right? And the youth that this bill will reach need the lowest barrier possible to access these resources and services. And I think that is the main reason not to put additional burden on the department to provide a standardized form. I think there are ways already, as Matthew indicated in the bill, to certify that level, whether it is participation with the McKinney Vento liaison in a HOP funded program, in a HUD funded program. I think DCFFSD would be involved potentially if they use this part of COMPASS already, right? So there could be crossover in some involvement. But I think hearing from youth for years who really are unhoused at the lowest level, even if it's not in definition, right, they need to be able to access the vital records, the opportunities for housing, the opportunities for student loans, for educational opportunities without direct government certification.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Are there

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: examples of alternative mechanisms for some kind of certification? Yep, this

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Well, it's sort of like saying the McKinney Vento, like they've already determined the eligibility based on the child's unhoused status. So if the McKinney Vento liaison says they're eligible for this service, that is certification. If they're already involved in a HOP funded program or shelter, housing opportunities, you all know that, that the

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: Just using a word of changing the HOP to state of Vermont fund, emergency shelter program funded by the state of Vermont, just in case that name ever

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: changes. And then it's also if they're in a HUD program, if there are funds coming directly from the feds to the state, or even if you wanted to do like a balance of state COC or Chittenden County COC funded program, I think there are opportunities to certify where the youth is already participating, right? So it's not an additional step.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: I mean, way of doing it, but there is a barrier to answer your question represented Donahue is, you can have someone self attest, like under penalty of perjury, if you so desire. That's how they do it in this caregiver's affidavit in New Mexico. There's a form that's in the statute, and you get it notarized. It's good for six months. The other you all talked about this unmarried part on page seven. I don't think that's necessary.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: The reason it is in there, I got word from Katie McLenn, is because in Vermont state law, as soon as you become married, you are emancipated. Basically, so the unmarried is just to specify. So if they get married, which is probably not the thing we should be encouraging youth of this age to do to gain access to all of this, you are considered emancipated and have all of these rights already. So just something to think about in the context of this bill is they could do all of this if they went out and got married.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: I suppose, though, if that part of the statute was cleaned up

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Yeah.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: There's obviously issues with that. Then this remains, and this would have to also be separately changed. I'm not sure. It's odd. I think, again, in my experience, what you're dealing with on the ground is a medical provider who's like, I used to give my teenage clients these letters to take to their medical provider. And the person at the front desk is pouring over this thing. And they're trying their best, but they don't have a lawyer to call. And if they see unmarried, I don't know. Anyway. And then this is a small thing, but line 18 on page seven, it says admission to high school. And again, that client example that I gave, it wasn't just admission. It was consent for field trips or whatever. I don't know if you need specify that, but that was just another small thing. Page eight, if we can go to page eight, because that's that's sort of a big one here that feel strongly about. And maybe there have been changes. So I'm looking at, page eight lines, well, section E starting on line seven. This whole section we feel is problematic for multiple reasons. And if it can simply be struck, think we'd be in favor of that. I'm not sure exactly what problems this is trying to solve. It seems like it's trying to wrestle with this idea of consent. But I don't think there's the need for anybody to stand in loco parentis, especially the department outside of a legal proceeding. We represent our constituency is made up of parents as well. We're impacted. And this section is, I would say, hard to find another word, but stigmatizing. It talks about abuse or neglect as well without a doubt. How would that be determined? And then it talks about the department stepping in and in lieu of apprentice substituting its judgment as the parent. I think, and I cannot give you legal advice, but I think that the whole point of the statutory section is you are creating a law that says children can consent for themselves under these circumstances if they are met. So I don't think you need to have all of this language about de facto consent and all of that. But I could be wrong, that's just some feedback.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Any question? Okay.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Page nine, the immunity from liability on line seven seems a little over the top. I mean, again, the language that I've seen is a physician may reasonably rely on documentation. And that seems to me to be sufficient. This seems very broad that they're immune unless it's gross negligence. I'm not a medical expert, but just something I noticed in passing. So I think that was it for that section, unless you had anything there. And then I think it's our in terms of our feedback, page 14 is the next place. So that's skipping over a lot of these fee provisions that integrate to the transportation section here, starting on page 14. Yep. And I think really this section, apparently there's, I believe there is work happening on newer versions of this. I think the way the definitions work in this section could use some thinking through and that, you know, we we can do as this bill advances among among others. But for example, I'm looking at page 16 now. The definition of restraint so there's three definitions here. There's well, there's four. Sorry. There's mechanical restraint, physical restraint, and then just restraint. So number three, restraint has the other two within it, which I just think has to be thought through. And then missing from here is chemical restraint. Talked

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: about it. Yeah.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Talked about it.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: So I heard.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Are picking it up, though.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: So and then there there's just some some if if there's extent definitions of these and, for example, the residential treatment regs, the current regs, that may all be moved once this toe winds its way through. But I guess I just want to highlight that the definitions obviously need to square. You already know. Anything you wanted to add?

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: I think the main consideration that I have been grappling with this section is that this is not a regulated space for children. There's minimal oversight. I don't know who's regulating the vehicles or the entities providing the transport. And that seems like a large gap to consider as it's transport from usually regulated facility to regulated facility. And then there's a very large gap in between. So I think that really needs to be considered in terms of where this section will live in statute. And that also would answer my larger question of which supervisor is approving the need for this type of restraint during transport? Is it the DCF supervisor? Is it the contractor supervisor? Is it the sheriffs? They provide a lot of secure transport. So there are questions to be answered for this space.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: And think this section also brings up the bigger questions for all of this, which is what's the remedy? And we could feel great about this law, but how does it work in practice? If a child is improperly, allegedly improperly restrained in a transport, and we all agree that it doesn't meet the new law that was just passed, how does that child exercise their rights? Who knows and when? I don't think I'm supposed to call on you, but

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: I agree that it's

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: a really good point. Just a brief historical when this law was first enacted on transportation, was an even bigger problem because how do you make sure that these contracted entities are required at all? And in session law, which is cited somewhere, but in session law further down the line was added that the agency giving services is not permitted to contract with any contractor who violates, and so they have to be held by these. However, then the only remedy is we're not going to re contract with you if you violate it and there's no route of oversight. So I'm agreeing with you that there's a big gap, but that was the thing.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: It's really an honest question. Think it's tricky. One answer to that is the notification and the reporting, which are crucial. And again, I have an optimistic version of attorneys in the sense that if they have the tools they need, that they can advocate. And if there's an active CHINS case and a child is transported and something allegedly goes wrong, I think this law should just ensure that that attorney should have access to the information necessary to support the child. Exactly how that looks and the GAL as well and others. And I just know that there's a lot of barriers in the child welfare system in terms of confidentiality. So I don't have a specific suggestion right now, but I just wanted to ensure that this information flows.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Actually, there's a couple of questions.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: Okay.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Yeah. Just quickly, the way this is written, do you feel it would protect children that are in out of state treatment programs? In terms

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: of transportation? No. I mean, I think it would have no effect. Right.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Is there any language that we could use that would protect children in the custody of the state of Vermont that are housed in out of state treatment programs?

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: You have many powers. Changing other states' laws is not one of them. However and I don't know. I am, again, no contracting expert. But I do know that, to make an analogy, we had this frustration where need we there was a restraint. We have we have we have our office has statutory access to information about restraints, child restraint and out of state placement, a concerning injury. The program was not providing all the information. We couldn't get it. DCF got some of it. That to me, I don't think the state of Vermont should be contracting and spending taxpayer dollars to any program that will not provide. Obviously, depends. Has to be reasonable. But to me, if there is a video of an incident, say a transportation incident even, or there is information that it had if they are taking Vermont's money, that that should flow back. I don't know what the mechanism is. I know that there's a minefield of statutes that require things to be in contracts. I will leave that to the folks who are a little more knowledgeable, but I think that might be the only well, I shouldn't say the only. That's one that's one theoretical way to make this happen.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Yeah. And and we're addressing that in the facility, the residential facilities, but it's not addressed in the transportation. Eric,

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: you have something?

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: Yeah. Just well, you know, with this discussion of the the transportation thing, do you believe that the bill should require a uniform standard statewide training and certification standard for anybody involved in the transport?

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: That's an interesting idea. I'm not aware of I I think that's outside my area of expertise in terms of what those trainings are, and it may be within yours. And I do know that, you know, entities are wary of additional training requirements. Is they have to be good. Mhmm. What's your feeling on that representation?

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: I believe there should be some type of language in there. And here's why. We've got rural places that are going to be transporting and other entities that don't have the tools or maybe knowledge of this. So to get, at least get it certified, we're actually placing those that are providing the transportation and giving them the tools that it's getting done right. And they're not put in a position of failure to where branch contacts are made. We stand to liability wise

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: It goes on, yes. You're right.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: So I believe that it would be vitally important to add some type of language requiring unified statewide training and certification standards for anybody that is providing transport of youths.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Eric, do you know if such certification or training exists?

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: It does. Where? I don't know, but it certainly does. Right. And these trainings and so forth can be developed by entities, so forth, involvement of entities is sourced through what's gonna be the most appropriate approach and where everybody's involved, whether it's the general's, whether it's providers, law enforcement, if you want to throw one in there to everybody except the tools necessary to make this work.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: And think it goes both ways. Like if I'm a program, I want clear standards that, and I want to be able to understand what is expected of me. That's both a business imperative, and obviously, I wanna keep kids safe if I'm that provider. So

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Oh,

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: one one smaller thing, maybe is a bigger thing. On page 15, line 12, I think the word routinely here, this is this is not I'm outside my jurisdiction, what's been asked today because this is not a proposed change currently. So if I'm starting on the line 11, letter d on page 15, it says, it is the policy of the state of Vermont that mechanical restraints are not routinely used on children. I think routinely is just confusing there. Because what is the policy? Is the policy that they're not used except in certain situations? Routinely means the state's policy that or it could mean that it's the state's policy that they're not used a lot on kids. Just it just seems ambiguous to me. If the policy is that they're not used except in certain circumstances, then I think it should just be clear on perhaps a small tick. I do want to highlight too, I'm on page 12, that there are two reports in section nine, right? Sections nine and ten, sorry.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Yeah, page number.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Yeah, I apologize. Sorry, on page 17, there's a report, which I think is like a one time report is, I guess, just the distinction. And prior to that, on page sorry, 15, there's an I guess that that is an annual

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: reporting Annual data information report. And the other is, like One We wanna know if you're doing this right or wrong because you may act.

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: Yeah. That's what I thank

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: you for the clarification. I I that's what I assumed. Okay. So, section 11, and I My understanding is this, there's been some discussions. So I'm on page 18 now. Yeah.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: I filled in the committee this morning. We had a little update that I had done work to combine those sections, kind of quote, take the best from each, and that it would not be able to immediately incorporate the Department of Corrections concept in terms of the prohibiting solitary confinement component that would have included incarceration of a minor, that that is going to be something that comes back to us. So the committee does have that background, that there have been a lot of draft changes because it combines language from both.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: And

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: I've tried to update you a little on that. And if you are able to sort it out to comment on sections that are still in the draft. You know?

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: We'll do our best to induce. Please, you know, steer us in the right way. I'm looking at page 18 right now. And I will say that this and this is gonna be tricky, but I have so section a, they're starting on line four. Solitary room confinement should not be used on any child for discipline, punishment, etcetera. That directly, I think, contradicts the definitions on page 20, which maybe are going to change anyway. So if you look at page 20, lines 11 through 14, it talks about administrative segregation and disciplinary segregation is mentioned there,

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: That is

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: was part of the attempt in that bill to do a Department of Corrections. That is struck. Okay.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Makes sense. In general, our feedback here, think one piece is there's a lot about talking in this section and we appreciate the intent of that. I think my own child included when dysregulated talking is one of the least effective interventions, which, as you can imagine, puts me in a serious disadvantage. So I think the point, we don't want to split hairs it, but I think the intent comes through. The point for us is always, again, that individualized. In general, this section too, we want to frame this as, there's a couple of sections which we can point to as we go through that put this I think we think too much on the child, sort of stigmatizes the child. I think what we want to think about this is there is danger. And yes, sometimes, and maybe even most, it is the child creating that danger. But I don't think that needs to be in the law. I think what we want to focus on is that if there's danger to the child or others, then that's the standard that we're focused on here. There's a couple of specific lines here. So for example, I'm getting lost in

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: my version. 19,

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: line eight. Right,

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: page

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Line nine, the child

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Line one, actually. I'm starting on line one on page 19. Immediately when the child regains self control, such that the child's behavior no longer poses a serious to me, it's just you want to start with when there is no longer a serious and immediate risk of physical harm to the child or the other person. Yeah. Because again, we don't want to put this on. I don't want to stand up here and be like, it's always the adult's fault. Of course not. But we want to conceptualize this as there are multiple folks, people in this room and everybody's job is safety. Anyway

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: think another important part is to look at the timeframes throughout this section and seclusion. Representative Donahue, since you noted that you have combined it, I think just to note that three hours in solitary confinement, yeah, is much too long. I also want to note that fifteen minute checks is too long of an interval, and it should be constant visuals.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: And that is a really important point here. I think this has to be constant monitoring. There is a lot of data of injuries to children happening in those fifteen minute, self inflicted included, of course. Well, obviously, that's the only if you're talking about seclusion. So seclusion is really concerning in a different way than restraint is. And I think point made. On line eight two, there's another one where I think the language could be less stigmatizing. I think you can figure that one out, but just missed that. Well, maybe I'll just an example on line eight, I think the language could be, immediately when there is no longer a serious and immediate risk of physical harm to the child or. Oh, and then at the top of 20, this transfer provision.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Final of 19.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Starting at the bottom of 19,

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: yes. Thanks. Yeah.

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: I think

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: the notion that if one of these incidents hits a certain place, that then the child is taken somewhere else might have unintended effects, I guess, I just would say. And I think it is hard to come up with language that's one size fits all for how to end these incidents. But I'm not sure that this bill needs to solve that problem on this. Yeah. No problem.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: Because I I wanna help because I this is one of the questions I had is really what challenges a legal risk you foresee in such transfers of delayed or no appropriate facility is available. So I'm trying to I wanted to lead you into your thoughts on this because this is vitally and Yeah,

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: think what we see that the length of time in seclusion and or in a restraint is not directly related to the need to be removed from the facility, right? So that shouldn't be the cause of a move to another placement. And just as you said, this is most likely in a facility where the guardian is not there, that being DCF, right? And so that would require DCF to make the change. And it can't be a result of just that one instance of solitary confinement or restraint or seclusion, depending on how the changes have rolled out. And I think there are existing pathways for that to happen through mental health screening at a designated agency or at hospital, depending on what the scenario is. And so that exists in practice and possibly does not need

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: to be in this law.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: That's what I was going say too. I think you want to rely on best practices that are outside the statutory framework. If I'm a program, and I cannot speak for programs, obviously, but on all sides, don't want something that's inflexible, that binds people into a certain action. What you want is the ability for, again, individualized attention, developmentally appropriate, and existing best practices and service arrays, which is not to say it's an easy problem, Representative Maguire, obviously. I'm not sure that it's within the ability of this bill to really address that. And I think what you don't want to do is wind up with something that is too rigid and that mandates, for example, the physical transfer of a youth, like Lauren was saying, when that may not be that may just make things worse. Right? Yeah. It's one that when does that employment hit of determination? Right. Yeah. That'd be

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: But do you need the other one? Thank

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: you. If you jump the gun, that next section is another part of in the consolidation because this is not going to involve the Department of Corrections, cells, so forth, that part is struck.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: You're talking about section 12?

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: G on page 20, beginning on line four,

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: single line five.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Ah, gotcha. Yes, yes, yes.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Yeah, that part is-

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: The H you said as well already.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: That H is also struck for the same reason. In consolidating, we started by using the solitary confinement because when the committee discussed it, it seemed like some of that introductory language around when you can use it and so forth was better structured. And then the second bill had all of the information record keeping and notification and all that. So those were the parts we were trying to pull together, but eliminating anything that was related to a Department of Corrections setting.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Yeah. Thank you. On page 21, lines four through six

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: That's all eliminated.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Okay, good.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Because that's replaced by the language that we've just gone through.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Okay, so including section D at the bottom of 21?

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: No, the part on data is where we start because the solitary confinement field didn't include data collection.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: So the last line on page 21, we don't know what the nature of the ICE. Does that mean maybe is it a restraint or a seclusion? I'm not sure, but I don't think the word nature provides necessary clarity for what is being asked.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: It Yeah, well. It was

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: the idea of whether it's a restraint or a seclusion. Is that the idea?

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: It could also be the type in terms of the progression. Is it a standing? Is it sitting? Is it from? Is it supine, right? Like there is a progression. And so I wonder if that's what you're trying to get at.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Well, right. A restraint can be grabbing a child to prevent something in the moment and then that's it. So that would be the nature of the restraint versus a restraint. We had to do the, what's it called, the therapeutic hug or whatever. To hold We the child for fifteen minutes and that calmed and then everything was good.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: What you're saying makes perfect sense to me. Don't think if I was just reading this statute, I would understand that. Some of this on page 22.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Hang on.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Sorry. Oh, I apologize.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: Oh, no. I'm sorry. Just one thing I wanted to follow-up quickly. Do you think we should require as a legislator to make sure that we mandatorily notify you when anybody notify the defendant general when anybody is put into restraint or confined? That's a great question.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: I think I will let Marshall Paul speak on that. But as I said before, I think from our perspective, the answer is yes. The attorney, the guardian of Lightham, need to know. I'm wary of putting, again, burdensome administrative requirements. But on the other hand, these incidents are pretty serious incidents when you're talking about restraints or seclusions. And I think it's critical. And I'm a

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: pro believer that more transparency produces better outcomes.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Yep. You look at the bottom of page 22, beginning on line 20, that is, I'm not sure how to remember, but that is continued in the new draft. That's the rule that requires, and that's changed to twenty four hours, which is standard. But all those people must be notified. I'm sorry, Representative Zonniewert. Page 22, if you go to the very bottom, starting on line 20, the rule shall require that this is all the rulemaking, but

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Do it. Do it. Yeah.

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Enough.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: That's gonna Alright. Be

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: changed to twenty four, you said? Yes.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: About twenty four hours.

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Yes. I just want to reiterate the importance of that, and I appreciate Representative Maguire noting it as well, that notification just can't be to the family services worker or specialized services unit at DCF or OCYFA, but really for everyone who's making important decisions for the child and involved in that decision making process. It has been a gap to know that I am seeing kids that are restrained at a higher rate, and there is some pause of, am I sharing with the attorney? Am I not sharing with the attorney? What can I share with the attorney? And the attorney needs to know that information in court. And what's important too is that judges are asking, and that's what we want them to do, to have a rigorous judicial process.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: And I'll, again, say on our annual report, there's a lot of data from the past year on

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: So again, before that line that was just pointed out, basically from lines 10 to 20 on that page is all proposed to be struck because it was already incorporated in what we've gone through previously.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Or attempted to keep them separated elsewhere. Where was that?

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Lines 10 to 20 on page 22.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: 10 to it's 21.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: 22, page 22. So

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: the rule making from seven to nine remains, but it's structured differently. It does include the notice.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: Oh, that's the new, okay.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: That's basically required that the rules incorporate everything required with statute.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Think we have said on the table. I think you guys can get it from Anne.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Right. It's just the numbers are different. That's I was confused about. It's okay. So I think where we wanna go now is There was a typo. Page 23. You probably have already caught it. I think that part might change anyway. I'm line 15 on page 23, but it it says prone restraint me. Nope. That's not a typo. That's my brain thinking it's a typo. Withdrawn. Okay. I think we are almost through here our comments for now. Oh, yes. Go ahead.

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Well, I'm not sure where it is in the current search and

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: My eyes are my eyes are starting to go cross.

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Right. And I think we sort of connected to it when we were talking about the nature of the restraint.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: It is. It's like a dog. I

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: I also would hope that in terms of notification when we're thinking of documenting and providing a copy of the incident report or document that we also are providing copies of video and audio if they are available. Because not all programs have that. And that is what that is. But when it is available, it should be automatic process or practice to save audio and visual with

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: restraints or seclusion. And this example that we had last year was the program permitted DCF to travel out of state to the program to view it. And we, in theory, could do that too, but it's we just have limited resources, and it's easy to transmit a video. I'm not sure what the why they would not do that. And it's frankly great concern on our part that the program is that there's safety issues if they won't like you said, representative Maguire provide that accountability mechanism. It should be for them too. I'm gonna move then to the last part, section 15. In general with this, well, title of this is the pregnancy surveillance working group. But then a lot of the language in here is about this calendar. And so I guess just there's a couple of specific places, but in general, I think, so I'm looking at, so page 25 lines two and three. What I think this language should say if this goes forward is there has created the pregnancy surveillance working group to examine the Department for Children and Families current practice of monitoring and tracking certain pregnant individuals. The calendar part is, I think, just not helpful narrowing of this. There's a calendar implication potentially, but I don't think there's even agreement on what the calendar is. It's a bit amorphous. I think the big picture is the monitoring and tracking piece. Frankly, yes, this part is a little I'm not sure that a huge working group is the path forward, but I guess if it is, then we're in for it. My concern is there's just gonna be a lot of people in the room and differing viewpoints.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: So Matthew, I'm going to suggest, because Jubilee mentioned that this was just a starting conversation starter. If you have recommendations, you should be involved, if you can send the specific recommendations of who the office is recommending be involved in evaluating this process, that would be helpful. And

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: some of the there's background a lawsuit involved here. And we just didn't want to create our own recommendations as a legislature without letting that process play out and have things be in opposition. Contravict. Yeah, guess

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: my concern would be that that lawsuit will not be resolved, I obviously have no before 02/01/2027. And it's a lot of folks to get to the table. So anyway, I don't wanna I think there's a goodwill here and so let's keep it going. Is there still an appropriation in this section or not?

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: No. Not good.

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: And I think the

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Private facility, yeah.

[Rep. Doug Bishop, Member]: The private, indeed, assistance, the reference to independent consultant facilitator.

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: Doesn't say any

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: shower or freeze.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: I guess if we could find one, yeah, that had been her suggestion initially and then decided we should refute that.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: I mean, think there's a lot of concerning practices in terms of the way the department, to use this language, surveils and tracks pregnant individuals. And there's a lot of issues that are serious issues that need to be resolved.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: We have one more question, and then I'll just say our next witness has a hard stop. Yeah,

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: this is just mainly Yeah,

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: our general one. Just do you believe currently at this time that youth are aware of their rights regarding restraint, confinement, or transportation? That is a

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: great question. I think in general, I would say we are not. I think you could take out the restraint and seclusion part of that. Think informing youth of their rights is something that this office really wants to bump up. I think, again, our capacity issues impact that. Reforming our website, as our annual report says, is our goal this year. It's one big part of that right now. But I think the short answer is no. And I also think that their rights is an important framing and having sat with youth and talk to them. If you say to them, do you know your rights? They start to light up. They're like, yeah, what? Like, or yes. Whether they say yes or no We go with this. Yeah. It's right. They're they're they're engaged. And I think that that's that is an important place to be. Number of other states have passed youth youth bills of rights. Some of them have more teeth than others, more effect than others. You know, I think other witnesses today can speak about that. We would like to we would like to work with you more and help them understand their rights and listen to them about what rights they understand they have or what rights they would like to have. Maybe they already have them and they don't know.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: But believe maybe then we could add some type of language into the build requiring friendly notification.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: It's what notification? Friendly.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: Friendly notification for the sake of our

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: No. I appreciate that. I think absolutely. I think I think involving the youth themselves in these they are very insightful about if you take restraint and seclusion, they are very insightful about what happens to them.

[Lauren McGill, Deputy Child, Youth, and Family Advocate]: I I just wanna say too, though, like, youth do have rights. There's the list of their rights in their case plans, right? They're educated on their rights when they enter a new program, but we know those rights are being violated. So what are we going to do about it? That's what I want to legislate. I wanna know what we're doing when the rights are broken,

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: not that they know them. We will pick this back up. I'm sorry to, I know you were done with your comments. So we wanna make sure that the Defender General has enough time for his time.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Thank you all for

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: advancing this bill. Appreciate you all.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Thank you for joining remotely and ready with the presentation, they can join us at the table in the witness chair. Okay. So before you start, I don't know if you've heard that Representative Donahue has been doing some work to consolidate certain sections of the bill. So you should give them feedback just so you'll know there are certain parts, and I don't know

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: if Anne, you want to give more detail than that or? Sure, just very briefly, the effort has been what we will be developing is a consolidation of bill on solitary confinement and on restraint seclusion, because we do not want to try to create any rules or so forth on the Department of Corrections at this point, recliners. That needs to be another piece. So that affects a lot of language that was struck because it was corrections focused versus DCF focused.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Great. I will keep that in mind and try to tailor my comments to that. I am working off of draft 1.1, so I did include some of that, I'll try to kind of tailor around that.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: And members, this presentation is on our webpage.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Yes, and I have hopefully included on our webpage an article that I just thought was important. There was no real way for me to summarize it because it's so detailed. It's a law review article from just last year regarding legislative approaches to protecting social security income for foster kids and I think it does a much better and more concise job than I could possibly do in this brief presentation of talking about what other states have done and what sort of the limitations and guardrails are. And so I just wanted to share that with the group and also just warn you not to be too intimidated by it. It looks very vague. Being a law review article, half of it is footnotes, more than half of it actually. So really the substantive part is contained in the first 20 pages. So don't be scared off by the 40 page article, it's

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: not that bad. Thank you.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: So, this bill does a lot, and rather than take it on section by section, I'm going to kind of take it on subject by subject, because the sections are a little bit different subjects are addressed in different sections. So, really what this bill does, which I think is fantastic, I want to start by saying we really think this bill is great. We really appreciate it. We like it, and we have a few suggestions for tweaking it. But we really like the bill as is. I mean, even if it was not changed at all, I think there'd be problems with implementation. But overall, there's so much good stuff in this bill that it would be a good bill even if it just passed as is. So what this bill does is a whole bunch of things in one bill. It removes administrative barriers for independent youth, which I think is huge. It's a brand new thing for Vermont. It's really exciting to see it in this bill. And I'll talk about some of the ways that it is tremendously useful and really valuable. This bill also protects Social Security benefits for children in custody. That's a really important thing that's been recognized as really important nationwide. There's been a lot of work on that that's been done nationwide as opposed to some of these other issues. And also a suggestions there that are going to be tied to sort of best practices nationally and what we've seen nationally in terms of how these types of legislative protections are implemented and the problems that come up in implementation. The bill also regulates the use of physical restraint and seclusion for children in custody and also for children who are being transported. I separate those out because from my perspective, I know that they seem like very similar issues, but in terms of in practice boots on the ground, they're treated in very different ways in practice. And so I think they deserve different treatment within the bill because I don't think there's a way to really treat them the same way in practice at all, and they're not in practice treated the same way. This fall also examines aftercare agreements and examines the present pregnancy surveillance calendar. So there's a lot in this, and I'm going to take it subject by subject. So, to begin with, I want to talk about the exceptions of this bill which remove administrative barriers for independent youth. And this is a really fantastic idea because it introduces, honestly, a new concept into Vermont law. In Vermont law right now, there's not really any recognition of the idea that there are youth who are, you know, and we're talking usually about youth in that sort of 15 to 17 year old age range, who are functioning already with a lot of independence and without a lot of parental support. Our roles right now really recognise only two things, which are old parental control and engagement and support. And then if you don't have that, governmental intervention that tries to provide that same level of parental engagement and support through foster care, residential placement, group home placement, some way to provide that same kind of level of support without recognizing that there's kids who are going into that adult transition who are actually, they've been through a lot, they're very resilient, and they are already providing a lot of that care for themselves. We don't have a system right now that recognizes that that can be true, and this starts to do that. I think that's incredibly valuable. I won't, for a lot of reasons, share my own life story with the committee, but I'll tell you that the provisions of this, address this subject matter would have been really important to me when I was a 15 to 17 year old, and so some my some of what I have to share about this is both what I see from my clients and it's also my personal perspective about what kids who are dealing with this kind of stuff need and what they don't and ways that the current system sometimes gets in the way of their ability to sort of develop transitional skills and develop resilience and how this provision really would sort of provide kids with some help without necessarily interfering in that process. So I really think this section is important and that's probably why I led with it, and you'll be able to tell that. So we think this is great because it creates middle ground around the change process. Normally, kids who are without proper parental care and support and who need some level of help, their only choice, the only choice the state has is to file a CHIN's petition, treat them as children in need of supervision, have a court find that they are without proper care necessary for their well-being, that they've been abandoned, or that they're beyond the care of their parents, and then subject them to essentially the full force of DCF involvement, which probably in a case like that means either trying to reunify them into a family that they for one reason or another have not been engaged to it, which can be a bad, sometimes that can be good, sometimes we can put things back together, often we can't, often it adds fuel to a fire that was already started and often really the more appropriate thing is to assist in that transition rather than trying to put a kid back into the situation they were in. The other options are to take a kid into custody and put them in foster care, put them in a group home or put them in a residential setting. That may be appropriate for certain kids, that may be appropriate given what certain kids' mental health or behavioral health needs are. It's not appropriate for every kid, and there are kids who really are developing resilience and independent skills, and that should be fostered, and that's not really permitted within that chin structure because we don't recognise that. We treat kids who are 16 years old, have a job, have a car, and are kind of getting by on their own without parental engagement the same way that we treat a 12 year old who does not have parental support. And that's where I think we really miss the boat. And that's where we actually, I think, put kids in, and I'll get to this in the next page, we put kids in a situation that can actually hurt them. I mean, when I was that age and when I was in a similar situation, I was actively trying to avoid anything having to do with government intervention, and there's a lot of kids who are. And they know that if the government gets involved with them, they may be taken into custody. They may wind up in a foster home, and they maybe don't want that. And so you wind up with kids who are actively avoiding assistance that they really need. And that's a situation I was in, so a situation a lot of kids can be in. So, that's why I want to start by looking at how this bill addresses this group of people, and it starts out with the definition. It starts out with this certification of a youth as an unaccompanied homeless minor, which I'm choosing to kind of change the language of and just say independent youth because homeless is a really tough word to use. There's a definition within the McKinney Vento Act that I don't think really encompasses the entire population of kids who could very much benefit from the provisions of this bill. And so I think that definition needs to be looked at. And I would say that independent youth is, I don't know if it's exactly the right term, but it's a term I'm going to use during my presentation. I also should have said at the beginning, feel free to interrupt me as I'm speaking, I'm typically interrupted by judges and I'm not When I talk for a long time and nobody interrupts me, I start to get really nervous. I'm better having to interrupt than just waiting for questions at the end, so if you've a question, just interrupt me. So this bill says, here is a set of rights that we are going to allow certain kids to access if they get certified as independent youth unaccompanied homeless minors, and that means that first step is they have to engage with their school and be certified by their school under the McKinney Vento Act.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: And just say my intent, I'm glad you pointed this out because in my brain, I just read it, that it

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: was always supposed to be an or. Okay, that was our suggestion, that that should be an or. That's because a lot of these youth are not engaged with their school, don't have a relationship with their school where they would be comfortable going to the school and asking to be certified, even if they weren't necessarily trying to receive the educational services. I certainly wasn't in that position. I can imagine a lot of kids are not. And so I think there should be alternative ways. If that certification is necessary, there should be alternative ways to get that. I think that the other options that we're in there are great, but I think it should be expanded even beyond that to include licensed mental health professionals because we do have youth who are not engaged with any of the providers that are on that list but to get mental health services. I think the same is true of healthcare and the separate provision that said, if you're not engaged with any of these people, but you think you can benefit from these services, here's a place that you can reach out to that will help you get engaged with one of these providers and get certified, and that could be any number of people. I can say that we would certainly volunteer to take that on in the Defender General's office, I've looked at that, and I think that it's probably a small enough number of youth that it's not something that we need resources for. I haven't mentioned that to my boss, so I'm kind of making that commitment without him, but I do believe that this is something that if you, without additional resources, I think it also might be something that could be handled through the Office of the Youth and Child Advocate, through the botanical aid, there may be other providers that can do that, but we would certainly be willing to be a part of it. And the way we would approach that would simply be if we had a youth reach out, we would try to connect them with one of the, you know, we wouldn't look at it as it wouldn't be appropriate for us to be one of the people who can certify, but I think it would be appropriate to create a path so that we could be connected with youth and if a youth says, hey, I would benefit from this and I'm otherwise in danger of winding up in your system represented by you in the CHIN system, that we could be there to help them get that certification, reach out to a health professional, reach out to a school, whatever it takes. So we think that's important because that is actually one of the major challenges that faces this population is engagement with traditional services. When I was that age, I was not engaged in any healthcare, any mental health care, definitely not engaged in school or schooling. I wouldn't have had access to any of the people on this list in any way that I knew how to go about doing on my own. And so I think it just would be good to expand that list. In the alternative, I do think that an alternative to expanding that list is simply instead of saying youth need to have some certification in order to have access to this group of protections, is simply to say all youth are entitled to those protections, whether they qualify as unaccompanied homeless minors or not. And so I'll talk about that really. We think the relief that's offered in this field is great. Driver's licenses, non driver IDs, learner's permits, there's no reason that any youth, whether they are an unaccompanied homeless minor or not, should be unable to get an ID or be able to work on getting their driver's license before they turn 18, whether they have parental permission or not. Turning 18, especially a period youth that doesn't have parental support, without a driver's license is like a you're being essentially sentenced into probably the criminal justice system or the human services system in one way or another, because it means you are going to have really limited access to housing and really limited access to employment, And this group of kids in particular is the group who, if they have those things, that's what's going to save them. That's what's going to make them independent and able to transition into adulthood in an effective way. So we don't think anybody should be limited from that. And so that's one way where we think you could eliminate that whole certification procedure and just say, all youth are entitled to this after the age of 15. As soon as you're allowed to get a learner's permit, then you can go to DMV without your parents and get any of the things you're entitled to. Same, I think, is true of obtaining vital records. One of the groups of kids we're talking about here, especially later on we talk about kids who are entitled to social security benefits, are kids whose parents are dead. They shouldn't have to go through some sort of special process to walk into vital records and say, I need my parents' death certificates to be able to get pie, to go get a bank account, to go do all these things that I need to do, but right now, that's one of the things they can't do. They can't get their own birth certificate, they can't get their parents' death certificates, and that shouldn't just be limited to kids who are certified as unaccompanied homeless youth. Like, you may be not an unaccompanied homeless youth, but still need these services and not have the parental support you need to get them. And we don't think certification should be necessary. So that vital records is another one. Consenting to health care is a great one because that's one where, by statute, children are already allowed to consent to health care without their parents' permission in a whole lot of areas. Reproductive health, mental health care, and substance use treatment specifically. We have statutes that say that youth over the age of 12 can consent to that care without parental support. So, we have already opened that door, and I don't think there's a reason to just simply instead of saying for the rest of healthcare, getting that care without parental support is limited to kids who are certified as independent youths, could we just open this to everyone and say, look, youths are already able to get a lot of really important healthcare, reproductive care, stuff like that. We ought to just say, you know, if you need a physical in order to participate in school sports, you can do that without your parents' permission, too. If you can get yourself to your doctor, you can get a physical, all that stuff, get your shots, get, you know, there's no reason to, since we've already said youth can get reproductive care, mental health treatment and substance use treatment without their parents' permission, it's kind of like the big controversial stuff is already available without parental support. Why not let the typical day to day health care, dental care, yeah, God, that was one when I was that age that burnt. Dental care burned me more than anything. I did not have dental care and I only learned when I was like 27 years old how bad I screwed up not having dental care when I was 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, like, yep, making that available without parental support I think would be huge, and we've already opened the door to that. So same is true of housing. I have clients who are 16, 17 years old who have to get housing with their parents, and they can't. And it's not because of them, it's because of their parents. They could get housing if they were allowed to in a heartbeat. They are not kids who would be great renters, they have jobs, they have cars, they have track records of independent success, they have people who support them, they have references. They can't get housing because they have to live with their parents and their parents have problems that keep them from getting housing. So, from me, from my perspective, this is just a kind of a common sense one, is if you have a kid that's homeless and they have a way to get housing, and the only barrier is that their parents aren't there to say, yeah, let my kid get housing, we shouldn't be letting that be a barrier. That just means we have homeless kids who could be not homeless, and the only reason that we're keeping them homeless is because they don't have their parents' support. So, I think that one's another one that's great, really important to keep in there. We think that one's fantastic. A few areas of RUI that are written into the bill that we think are unnecessary. First of all, it says in there that children who are certified under this can seek educational services. I don't think we need that because there is no state statute that prevents kids under the age of 18 from seeking educational services, and there is a federal statute, the McKinney Vento Act, that guarantees homeless kids the right to seek educational services. So because there's no statute in state law that this bill would be able to affect, because there is no statute right now in state law preventing an 18 kid from getting education without their parent support. We don't need a statute that says they can, and in fact, it kind of confuses things by kind of implying that they can't if they're not certified as independent homeless youth, which actually they already can under existing law. So we don't think that provision needs to be in there. Same with automobile insurance. There's actually already a specific provision, 8VSA 3,710, that says that anybody age 15 or over can get automobile insurance without their parents' permission. It's a statutory exception to the common law rule that children are not allowed to enter into contracts, and it says that children between 15 and 18 can enter into a contract with an insurance company. So there is already no state statute prohibiting kids from getting insurance without their parent support, and there is already a statute explicitly allowing it. So I don't think we need it in this bill. There are automobile insurance companies that have policies that they won't insure an independent 18 youth, but we can't actually control that. So, all this would do is remove any state statutory barriers, and there already are none. In fact, there's a state statutory allowance. So I don't think we need that provision in the bill. Same with student loans. There are some very prohibitive federal barriers that get in the way of getting student loans. If you are an independent youth, I certainly ran into those. I've tried to help kids who are running into those, but they're not at the state level. There's nothing in state statute that's hurting kids who are trying to get federal financial aid without parental support. It's all at the federal level. You can't evenI mean, forget getting federal financial aid. You can't even file a FAFSA form without your parents' support. And that gets ugly. I have had to help kids fight their own parents in court trying to get court orders to get their parents to sign FAFSAs because they can't be even considered for financial aid if their parents won't fill out the FAFSA, and I've had parents who just simply refuse. And college can be another ticket out for kids who are in this situation. It was my ticket out, and I sure had to work to get my financial aid paperwork sorted out because of all of this. But I don't think it needs to be in this bill because it's federal barriers, not state barriers, and there's nothing in state statute that we could really do. I'm going to talk to some of my federal financial aid people and ask, is there anything that we could put in state statute that would assist with the federal problems that crop up? But my understanding is there isn't, and so I would probably keep that out. Same with opening a bank account. We already have a provision in the banking regulation sections, VSA 14,206, that says that children can open bank accounts, deposit monies, and the banks have to treat the children as if the minor were of age. It's another statutory exception to the common law rule about contracting. So I don't think we need a statute saying that any state barriers prohibiting a kid from getting

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: I just wanted to interrupt before we switch slides, not as for that top bullet point about the McKinney Vento Act. I've worked a lot with Schoolhouse Connections kind of in developing this bill. They're a national group. I have another bill that actually is all about enshrining those federal protections in state law because currently only one part of those protections is in state law. And my work outside the legislature is in working with runaway homeless youth. And just paying attention, there's been a number of statements and indications within the federal government and messaging that that is exactly those are some of the protections that they have talked about yet removing. And so if those were gone, those protections would no longer be enshrined in state statute. So part of that is just ensuring that those protections are there and that there's never any loss to that stability in education.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: That makes sense. And I haven't been following federal policy development, so I wouldn't know that. I do think that if we are trying to create essentially a state McKinney Vento, it's going to have to be bigger than this bill is because McKinney Vento is actually a really powerful law in terms of what it allows you to do. If we are going to try to enshrine all of those protections in state law, so that if the entire federal law disappears, we've still got them in state laws. It's kind of a much bigger project than just this bill alone, but I would agree, to the extent those are in danger federally, we want to protect them. With opening a bank account, we have the same issue. We've already got a federal law that says children can open bank accounts, a state law that says children can open bank accounts. To the extent that there are children who are not allowed to open bank accounts without parental permission, that's not because of state law, it's because of bank policy, and we can't really affect that with state statute. So we don't think that part is necessary. However, again, we wouldn't be opposed to keeping it in there if there is some way that it can be helpful.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: Do you think offering the fact that the bill does offer some kind of liability protection

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: may tweak the Yeah. It might. And so, yeah, I think maybe it might be worth reaching out to the Vermont Bankers Association. They regularly testify on bills and this certainly affects them. And I'd be curious what they have to say because a lot of this is bank policy based, certainly not state statute based. I don't know if some

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: of it's

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: federally statutorily or regulatorily based because there is a real lot of federal regulation about banks that I don't know outside of my subject area. So I'd love to know what we could be doing to be making banks more accessible to transition age youth banking services. I mean, that is a real problem. When I was that age, I would have gone cashing my checks and paying for things with money orders from the post office, and I didn't have access to banking and I know a lot of kids who are in that same situation, it's where can you cash your cheque and then you live your life off money orders from the post office because that's the only way to pay a lot of bills, stuff like that. So I think that's an important one. Same with the provision in there that says that children can receive victim services without parental approval, that's already in the law and children do already receive victim services without parental approval, so we don't think it needs to be in there, it might just confuse things by kind of implying that they currently can when they certainly can. So that moves on to protecting Social Security benefits for children in custody. We think this is a great provision, long overdue. This is a situation that's been, I've been sort of made aware of it as far back as like 2015, 2016, when it was a subject that came up at the ABA Centre on Children's Law Conference. But I was shocked to find out about it and then to come back to Vermont and find out how it worked here and realise how it was working. Really, I think what's important about understanding this section is that we're talking about two groups of children, like there's two ways that children are receiving social security benefits. And it really only comes up in the most tragic circumstances, and that's part of the reason why when I get to our recommendations about this section, part of our recommendations are not really based on kind of legal logic or anything, They're just based on the population of kids we're dealing with and the fact that any kid that's receiving Social Security benefits and is in DCF custody is really, we're talking about the unluckiest group of kids you can deal with because the two ways that you wind up receiving Social Security benefits when you're a kid is because your parents are dead, both of them, and that entitles you to Social Security survivor's benefits, or because you are yourself so disabled you're not going to be able to work and you're entitled to Social Security disability benefits. Either one of those situations is a horrible situation to be in if you're a transition age. And so the situation is that in either of those situations, their kid who's receiving Social Security benefits, who comes into DCF's custody, may not actually see those Social security benefits because DCF becomes their payee and DCF becomes the sort of controller of that money when it comes in. And DCF is allowed by federal law and actually by a US Supreme Court case, I should have put that up, the Supreme Court case in my slide, I forgot the name of the case, it's rather Washington State, but by a US Supreme Court case, the state child welfare agencies, including Vermont DCF, are allowed to use social security benefits that kids earn to pay for the regular costs of care, foster care, if the kid is in a group home, in a group home, if the kid is in a residential facility, to pay for that, to pay for the cost of regular care. And that is what happens. That's very typical. There's only a couple states, really, that have enacted full protections to say that, no, those benefits are for the kids' benefit alone and can't be taken and used to pay for other services. Now, areI can understand the logic the logic the US Supreme Court used when they ruled that states could use this money. And they said it's because this money is not regular income. This money is different than regular income. This money is money that the government essentially assigns to kids for their well-being. And if that well-being is being provided for by the state in the form of foster care, there's no reason why that money can't be used by their payee, who is the state in that case, to pay for that foster care. That's the logic of it. But it puts kids into a situation where you just have to imagine like two kids who are in really similar situations who are treated differently. Let's say you got two kids who are both in custody because they're both in state custody, they're both 16 years old, they both make a few $100 a week, one of them makes that money because they get social security disability or survivor benefits because their parents are dead, the other one gets that same $300 a week because they're working after school at a restaurant, DCF can take the money that the first kid DCF can take the first kid's income and use it to pay the cost of foster care, use it to pay the cost of care for the kids, and DCF can't take the second kid's income at all, and that kid can use that income for whatever they want. And I understand and legally speaking, I understand why there's a distinction in those two types of income and why the law treats those two types of income differently. 16 year old kids does not understand that distinction, and for them, it just doesn't seem fair that the money that is coming in as income to them, they're not allowed to spend and instead is spent paying their foster parent, whereas a similarly situated kid getting the same amount of money coming in every week to the same bank account can't have that money touched simply because they have a different source of that income. So, it really just creates this kind of weird dichotomy. This bill goes partway to solving that problem, and it does it by saying that DCF can't use those social security funds to pay to offset DCF's cost for the child's maintenance, but that it still can use those funds to pay for the child's unmet needs beyond the amount the state is obligated, required, or agrees to pay. I don't actually know exactly what that means, and that's why I don't support the language. I think it's a matter of fundamental fairness, something that said something more along the lines of DCF is not allowed to use, as the kids pay, not allowed to use those funds to pay for anything that they wouldn't be providing without taking funds from a child, or a similarly situated kid in custody who doesn't have Social Security income is really what we're trying to say. We're trying to say that Social Security income should be put in the bank account, one of those ABLE accounts, and saved for those kids for when they turn 18 and they are transitioning out of state care and into independence and that money will be a real benefit to them. I think that's really what we're trying to say and that's a better way to say it, because I don't understand the distinction between offsetting the cost of the child maintenance and determining what the unmet needs are beyond the amount the state is obligated to pay. So that would just be my one suggestion to that section is in some way just say DCF can't use that money to pay for anything that they wouldn't otherwise pay for out of DCF funds, and that's all. And maybe there are things where it would be appropriate for DCF as payee to use those funds. DCF doesn't pay for kids to go, but let's say a kid's in foster care and the foster parents say, hey, we're going go on a cruise and we could take this foster child with us, DCF doesn't necessarily say, yeah, we'll pay for a cruise. They could pay for it out of this, I would support that if I was a kid's attorney. And so, don't want it to be limited to saying, this money can't be touched until the kid turns 18. I think maybe there are some things that are outside of what DCF would normally pay for that would still be an appropriate use of these funds, and maybe we should allow for that, but that's the way it should be limited, is not to things that DCF would otherwise pay for.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: I'm going to interrupt before I go. So I'm just doing a quick time check, because we have several other ones

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: to skip through before. I only have a few slides left.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: And then wrap notes, go ahead.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: No, that's what we were trying to get at, what you just said.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: So then I'll move on. I'll move quickly for time purposes. The way that the bill addresses inclusion and constraint, I think, a really good step to put in the statute. Right now, everything is addressed through regulation and policy, and that means that there is no uniformity around the state in terms of how seclusion and restraint is addressed. We have different policies in terms of how does DCF do it in a regulatory manner, so in facilities that are regulated by DCF, have certain policies around restraint and seclusion that are mandated by DCF's licensing policies. Other facilities are not licensed by DCF at all. They may be licensed by the Department of Mental Health. They have a different set of policies. There are other facilities that are not licensed by DCF nor Department of Mental Health. They are unlicensed. Policies are driven entirely by internal policy. And then there's areas that may be sort of governed by DCF but are not subject to DCF rule making. For example, when Woodside was opened, Woodside was owned by DCF, but it was not subject to DCF licensing. And even though DCF licensing was in there saying, You have restraint and seclusion problems, they were saying, We don't need to follow licensing regulations, and therefore we're not going to adapt our restraint and seclusion policies. So, I think it's very important that this has been put into statute, and I'll leave that at that. That's where we get to transportation of children and providing, again, some uniformity statewide in how we handle transportation and the rules around transporting children. And this is where, boy, do we ever need this law. I'm going to share a story with you real briefly that happened just a matter of a few months ago to me. I had a client who was in a position where my client was not in DCF custody, my client was at home, on probation, and my client essentially needed to self surrender and turn themselves in and go into custody. And we arranged that. My client was just not doing well on probation, not making the progress they needed. They needed resources. They couldn't get on probation. We arranged the whole thing. We arranged what was going to happen. We arranged where they were going to go. We arranged the probation violation. We arranged the hearings. We planned for them to show up to admit, to go into custody, we arranged how they would be transported, and it was agreed that I would transport them. I took a state car, drove to their house. I was going to pick them up from there and drive them to court, and then drive him from court to a placement a couple of hours away. Nobody had any problem with this. This was not a matter of concern. Nobody thought this kid was flight risk, nobody thought this kid was a risk to themselves or to me, it was just a matter of how they transported him, I volunteered to do that transport, nobody had any problem with that. I drove to the kid's house, picked the kid up and the state car broke down. Got in the car, had the kid's suitcase in there because the kid's going away to treatment and pushed the button to start the car, nothing happens, car is broken, I don't know what to do. So, I call the court to say, Oh my God, I'm not going to make it to court, I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with marginal self-service and a broken state car. Court agrees to let me do court with the kid remotely. We do that with my cell phone, sketchy connection, but now we don't have a way to transport the kid to their placement and so it ends up with the rule, it falls to the police to do it. This kid, was fine with me transporting this kid, just a public defender in a state car, just a fleet car, just a regular fleet car. Nobody had any problem with me putting the kid in the car and driving him three hours to where he needed to go. But because I couldn't do it, they had to call in the state police to do it. Three state police cruisers with at least four police officers. I started to get mad when the second police cruiser showed up. So the third police cruiser actually kind of hid out on the street and never even pulled into the driveway because I had already expressed my displeasure. Three police cars units show up with at least four police officers, all to do a transport that everybody could have agreed could have been handled by a public defender with a state fleet car. And that damn kid was shackled in hard shackles for the entire three hour transport to a program where the kid was going be unshackled, not to a secure program, to a non secure program, to a place where the kid was going to get substance abuse treatment. And it wasn't a kid like, we're not talking about a situation where you're like wrestling a kid in the back of a car or something. The kid had his suitcase back, his parents were there kissing him goodbye, giving him hugs in the driveway before he gets patted down, shackled and put in the back of a cop car, because that's just simply the state police's policy for how they do a transport. They're not going to do a transport without shackles, without being in the back of a car. They're not going to respond to they consider anything that comes out of a DCF case to be a domestic, and they said they're not even going to show up without multiple units. And that is absurd. It is an absurd way. It's a traumatic thing to do to kids. It's not necessary, and it's a huge waste of money. I have no idea how much it costs for them to transport that kid three hours from his house to the program that he was going to, but I guarantee however much it was, it was a lot more than it would have cost me to drive the fleet car down there and back. You know, it would have been six hours of my time, which is not cheap. We could have done it with an Uber. So we think that it's really important to change this, to put this in law. We do think that the way that this bill does this should be changed, because the way that this bill does it is more through regulation. And just like the section we were just looking at about restraints, the seclusion, we think it would be better if this committee goals in terms of how should transportation happen and under what circumstances were put in the statute, and everybody had to follow that statute, because transportation can happen by DCF, it can happen by police, it can happen by sheriffs, it can happen by private providers, it can happen by any number of people. And I think they should all be subject to the same rules. Right now, it's arbitrary. How you get transported has less to do with whether you present risk of flight, whether you present any risk of harm to yourself or other, and more to do with just the convenience of who is available to transport you and what are their policies. That's what determines whether you get transported with multiple cops in the back of the car in hard shackles or you get driven in the state car by me and we stop for McDonald's on the way. It's just convenient. It's not anything to do with the kid, and that shouldn't be. So, that's our suggestion there. Finally, I will get to the next two sections very quickly. Aftercare placements, we need to do a bit more research before we comment on this section. Aftercare agreements are not subject to a lot of things we call ECAs here in Vermont, extended care agreements. They're not subject to much oversight or regulation, but we're also not available with many problems with them. So in terms of do we think this section needs to be in there, we need to spend a little bit more time talking to our people about do you guys see problems coming up that would be addressed by this section. If we don't, we're going to say we don't see this section as necessary because we actually, in our opinion, extended care agreements have been great. We've had really good experiences, our clients have had good experiences getting extended care agreements and we don't see a problem that needs solving right now, but we're going to ask and if there is, we'll come back to you and tell you so.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill, Member]: Isn't the federal requirement that will allow us to bring in more money to

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: support these youth? That makes sense enough.

[Rep. Anne B. Donahue, Ranking Member]: Yeah, it's purely to

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: We have more think that's fantastic because we think that extended care agreements are one of the best things, one of the best tools that we have for, as I said, this bill really addresses is these transition age youth. Extended care agreements are a great tool and anything that we can do to expand the use of them is fantastic. We just haven't seen a lot of problems, which is why we said that. The Pregnancy Children's Working Group. This is obviously something that warrants subject by the legislature, so we support the creation of this group. Our only suggestion is to add our office to the group. Well, I can see, as was mentioned, it's already a large group, and I can see why we would not be included in the group, because by definition, the pregnancy surveillance calendar affects people before a petition has been filed, which by statute is also when our office can't have anything to do with them. We can't represent them. We can only represent people once a CHIN's petition is filed. So I can see where you look at it and be like, well, they don't belong in this working group because they would never even step into this situation. But weirdly we actually do, because we end up dealing with the downstream effects of the pregnancy surveillance calendar because a lot of people who are subject to this wind up with a change petition file and wind up dealing with the case that emerges out of the pregnancy surveillance calendar. So that's one reason we should be involved. Another one is that we represent a lot of people who are parents, who have children, who may be in DCF custody, who are subject to a general petition, and who are pregnant and subject to the calendar. So, even though we represent them yet in any potential future case relating to their unborn child, we surely represent them in cases involving their already born children. And additionally, I would just say that our office was involved in the CHINS case litigation that led ultimately to the civil case. We obviously were not involved in the civil case, But because of that, we're pretty deeply versed in this subject. So we think this is a good thing to do. I do agree with the Office of Child and Youth Advocate that it's a big group and big groups aren't always a good thing. But I didn't see anybody on the list who I was like, man, they should be excluded. And so I think it's our job as professionals to work together even as a big group and I don't necessarily want to disagree with them in their statement that it's a large group and maybe could be pared down to be more effective, but I will say it's a group of professionals that should all be able to work together in a big group, and I think we should be in that group, but we don't oppose the group as is. If there was a way to pare it down that still maintains effectiveness, great. Small groups are more effective, but that's all. Happy to answer questions.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry, I will go back and read your materials and watch it. It's just downstairs in appropriations. So thank you, Marshall. I appreciate you being here. Thank you.

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: I just had one question. I'm sorry. Had to make a quick call. And it goes back I know you had mentioned that you didn't quite get to the section about aftercare. But do you believe that you should have legal representation when DCF does seek approval for aftercare?

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Here's what I'd say is if DCF is going to deny you approval for aftercare, then yes. If they're going to grant you everything you want, which typically, honestly, what we see is kids are getting the services that they want and they're even getting services beyond what they even know that they want. And we're not seeing problems with kids getting those services. And so we don't see the need to step in and involve lawyers in a process that currently is working okay without lawyers, but like I said, we're going to ask, I'm going ask our people whether there's problems that I'm not aware of that are coming up and those would be in the sense of people who are being denied care. If that's happening, then yeah. If it's happening, the kids are being denied that care, I would say that they should have legal representation and in fact, what I'd say is, they already can have it if we can find out about it. Usually by this time their cases are closed and so our representation has ended, but we still, once we've represented a kid, we have statutory authority to step back in if we have to. And if DCF was in a position to deny somebody aftercare and if our office found out about that and that was a kid that we had represented, I'd file Rule 75 to challenge the government's decision not to provide aftercare if I had some grounds to do so. So I'd say to some extent they already have that right if they are denied an extended care agreement that they are seeking, but they may not know that. There would be no way for them to know. This has never come up for us. There would be no way to know that our office would happily file rule 75s in those cases and actually already has statutory authority to do so. But anything we could put in statute that said, yeah, if DCF is going to deny an extended care agreement, the kid should get notice that they'd call the defendant general's office and we're happy to step in. We'd be happy to do that. And again, I shouldn't say this without talking to my boss first. I can say that much, but can say this much, I don't think we need extra resources to do it. Number of cases we're talking about is so small, I can absorb it with me and the other attorney in central office, we're talking probably about a few cases a year, if any. We can handle that. Thank you. And we have one final question. Just real quick, do you feel

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: you have the authority and the capacity to help if a child applies for social security, whether survivor benefits or disability and is denied?

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: We can refer them to attorneys that can help them and we do, and we can very much help that process, but absolutely we do not have statutory authority to walk into federal court and do a social security determination challenge. Not only that, I would say it's a really specialised area of law that we don't train in. It's part of the reason we are happy to refer those cases to private attorneys. Private attorneys take those cases on a contingency basis. We have not had a problem getting attorneys for children who are in that situation because the attorneys out there that do federal Social Security Disability work in the federal district court, they already have a way to get paid. They just need somebody to refer the cases to them and we can do that. So, it wouldn't hurt, but right now, we would continue our current practice of referring those cases out just because we're already getting good results doing that, and they have the expertise, and we don't have the expertise nor the statutory authority.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: So will you work with DCF should you hear of a denial?

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Yeah, we'd love to do that. Yes. We enjoyed those cases. I enjoyed referring those cases out. The attorneys that do that work are great. And they're they always tell me on case one. Always an exciting time.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Thank you so much, Marshall, for being here today, and appreciate your response on short notice as well. We're counting down the days to cross over, so appreciate that. So we have a slight shift in agenda here. We're going to vote on the APS bill. So we have a Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. So thank you, Marshall. We've been rejoined by Jen Carvey. We are going to have to reschedule some witnesses. I apologize. This is not going to take too long, but I guess I wanna know, is there anybody who thinks that they are going to be relatively quick? Like, didn't know if maybe the treasurers out of the remaining witnesses, like, Peter, I don't know. Are you gonna be relatively quick? We could be relatively quick. Okay. Erica, you're not going to be quick, and I don't wanna rush you. So I'm sorry, can we reschedule? Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate that. So Jen, if you wouldn't mind joining us here. And I think Laurie just posted the new version of the bill to So you'll see on it's draft 2.1, h five eighty two draft 2.1.

[Matthew Bernstein, Child, Youth, and Family Advocate (State of Vermont)]: Just trying

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: to find Todd to make. I it's a disjudal. No.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Todd, while Jen is looking for that, are you there?

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: So there was just just to refresh people's memories from this morning, there was just one change that we were recommending, and that was essentially to be able to provide notification to adult protective services when OPR receives a report.

[Anne Kirby, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Anne Kirby from Office of Legislative Counsel. So, yes, this is the new draft 2.1, and it's a clean copy so you can vote it. But I will I will flag for you where the new language is. So, again, we are in section two of the bill amending 33 BSA sixty nine zero four, and this is the new subsection b. So to start with on line four, there had been a question about whether this should say relevant licensing entity or entities. So I put licensing entity or entities, and that way, everybody wins. And then the actual change based on your conversation this morning, I added in a new a and made a couple of changes in what I've called now b. So in subdivision two, we have, if a licensing entity receives a report of alleged neglect pursuant to subdivision one of the subsection B, the licensing entity shall notify adult protective services that the licensing entity has received a report and is acting upon it accordingly. And then B says, If the licensing entity identifies neglect allegedly perpetrated within a licensed facility or program or by a licensed individual, the licensing entity shall make a report to Adult Protective Services in accordance with subsection A, so the regular report provisions.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: That is it. Any questions?

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: I just got one on page two, line 14. Pursuant to the wishes of the vulnerable adult.

[Anne Kirby, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, yep, this is the definition of term neglect. And there was testimony this morning from the department that this definition is necessary to comply with federal requirements. And so this is just saying, is the provision saying the actions or inactions of a caregiver or fiduciary are not neglect if the person is acting pursuant to the wishes of the vulnerable adult.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Are there any other questions for Jen? Okay. So, I would entertain a motion to approve version 2.1 of h five eighty two. So moved. Okay. It's been moved to approve, version 2.1 of five eighty two. Is there any further discussion? Okay. The clerk shall call the roll.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Representative Bishop? Yes. Representative Cole?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Yes.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Representative Donahue? Yes. Representative Esme? Yes. Representative Garofano?

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Yes.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: Representative Maguire? Yes. Representative McGill? Yes. Representative Nielsen? Representative Noyes? Yes. Representative Steady? Yes. Representative Wood? Yes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: And zero one. Okay. And Representative Noyes will be reporting the bill on the floor. Thank you so much, Jen. It's good to see you. Know. You bet. I bet. Peter, can we have you join us? Nice to have you back in our committee. I just said the other day that we haven't seen you.

[Peter Trombley, Director of Legislative Affairs, State Treasurer’s Office]: I know. It's right over there all

[Rep. Daniel Noyes, Clerk]: the time.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: I was like, yeah. I put your spot.

[Peter Trombley, Director of Legislative Affairs, State Treasurer’s Office]: There are some new faces in the committee since then. So I'll introduce myself, Peter Trombley, director of legislative affairs at the State Treasurer's Office. I'll be very brief. First, we are grateful and supportive of the committee's efforts to safeguard the benefits owed to foster youth. We think this is a fantastic effort. We looked at section two of the bill and tried to dig into what it might take to operationalize that on our end. I will say that, you know, we read this language, particularly this word, you know, assist as putting us in a relatively minor role as it compares to DCFs in the administering of these funds. Although, you know, the way we read this, it would really be up to DCF to determine the scope of what our assistance would look like. In terms of setting up ABLE accounts, it's very straightforward for our office. And in terms of setting up other trust accounts for those who are not ABLE eligible, we view this language as having DCF really holding ownership of those accounts. If it were to be the committee's intent that our office would hold the accounts for DCF, there are a number of administrative hurdles that we would want to examine more closely. Typically, if we have a program in our office a program in our office that that requires us to track separate accounts for individuals that have fiduciary reporting obligations that go along with that, we have a contract with a third party administrator to undertake that. And that is at a cost typically partially funded by fees on the account. So to really understand what that would look like in our office, we need to have more conversations with DCF about what the scope of accounts and the total value of assets that we're looking at and what even would be possible in terms of how those accounts get funded. It would simply need to be state dollars who pay for the contract to administer those accounts. So I wanted to put that out there just so that we best understand the committee's intent in terms of who is actually holding this.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: I appreciate that. And I think that we are really viewing this as sort of the beginning of the conversation and trying to establish some baseline guidance essentially. So we expect it to evolve. Does the committee have any questions?

[Rep. Eric Maguire, Member]: I think it's going to reflect upon you get a wait and see to where then you're going to put the protocols into place. Because if the, like the ABLE accounts, if those assets begin to drop too high, there's a potential risk that those assets when reported back, the youth could lose their SSI benefit. We Just wanna make sure that doesn't occur. Yeah.

[Peter Trombley, Director of Legislative Affairs, State Treasurer’s Office]: And I'll say our office doesn't have the institutional knowledge to avoid those circumstances in terms of what would trip, of SSI policies. We would really be leaning on DCF for that. We contract with an entity called Sable Accounts that administers our ABLE program. They work with BestWell, which also administers other accounts for the state of Vermont, and we certainly have conversations with them about what that monitoring would look like on their Any

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: other questions? Thanks so much.

[Peter Trombley, Director of Legislative Affairs, State Treasurer’s Office]: Thanks for your time. We're excited to be working on this.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: Thank you. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Let's give it a go, Michelle, and see what happens. I will say that we have to end when that clock up there is at twenty five after, no later than that, because we have a thing. Yeah. We have a thing going down on the floor. Think that our committee assistant needs to be present for.

[Marshall Pahl, Vermont Defender General]: You can come back.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano, Vice Chair]: That's better.

[Rep. Theresa Wood, Chair]: Is that possible? I don't want to curtail committees questions and stuff like that. I appreciate so much that flexibility. We weren't quite expecting the length of time for previous witnesses. So appreciate both your flexibility and thank you, deputy commissioner as well. I was glad you were all here to be able to hear the other testimony as well. Yes. Okay. So so members, we are gonna be adjourning to the house floor. And just to give you some context, I need to relook at the schedule for tomorrow because it's changed. So we are going to be hearing from judge Zonet tomorrow, and I'm not sure if our witnesses are gonna be able to accommodate and maybe a change for tomorrow, but Laurie will be in touch. So thank you all.