Note: I did not know that this happens. It's hard to imagine that these funds would benefit families, directly. What if the funds were used to help address generational trauma instead and help whole families to heal?
Some foster kids are eligible to receive Social Security benefits, but the kids and their families don’t always know the money is available. Instead, the state applies for the benefits and puts the funds toward paying for foster care services. Now a lawsuit is asking if the state needs to notify families and guardians before it starts taking the money.
About 160 foster kids in Alaska are entitled to social security benefits because they have a disability or one of their parents have died. But most of the time, the money doesn’t go to the individual child, it goes straight to the state.
“What smells bad about this is the state seems to be trying to gain federal money that it isn’t necessarily entitled to,” Superior Court Judge William Morse said while listening to oral arguments in the case in late February.
Comments (0)