Sometimes success looks like somebody else’s news article. Such was the case last week when Lauren Peace and Teghan Simonton of the Tampa Bay Times released their investigative report, “Hillsborough’s Foster Agency Celebrates Keeping Families Intact. It Separated Hundreds Off the Books.” If you’ve been following us for any length of time, you know a lot of the work of the Parental Rights Foundation happens in coalitions, and a lot of it happens behind the scenes. Part of that work was drafting a model bill with the Coalition to End Hidden Foster Care to preserve families’ rights when they’re facing the kind of separation Peace and Simonton wrote about. See, while Hillsborough, Florida, celebrates having fewer children in foster care, it turns out they’ve only lowered those numbers by sending children to live with relatives instead. The parents had no more say in it than if the children were taken to foster care, although it happens under a guise of “consent.” Parents sign the paper, but only because they’re threatened with losing their children to foster care if they don’t. And who wouldn’t choose to send their children to live with grandma or an uncle if the only other option is a stranger? But this form of “Hidden Foster Care” robs families of crucial legal safeguards. They don’t ever get their day in court. The caregivers don’t get supports that regular foster families do. And often there is no exit strategy, no path by which the kids eventually come home. All of these problems are highlighted in the Times article. They’re problems our model bill seeks to address. And they’re problems we’ve been highlighting for years, both in this email newsletter and on our EPPiC Broadcast podcast, which launches its thirteenth season on Tuesday (September 8). In fact, three of the experts quoted in the Times article have been guests on our podcast already: Listen to Andrew Brown’s episode on Child Welfare Reform bills in Texas Listen to Josh Gupta-Kagan’s Child Welfare analogy from Star Wars Listen to Shanta Trivedi’s talk on the hidden harms of family separation  That these experts have been on our podcast and are also featured in the Times article is no accident. No, I don’t mean that the Times writers came to our podcast site looking for experts to quote. (I suppose they could have, but I have no evidence that they did.) But these experts, like your Parental Rights Foundation, have been working tirelessly for years to call attention to the problems of Hidden Foster Care. Just like us (and in concert with us, as it were), they have been working to change the narrative. Now, this article in The Tampa Times is the latest proof that our efforts are working. See, so much of our work in the field of child welfare reform is about shaping the narrative. When I started here, “everyone knew” that if CPS came knocking on your door, you must have done something wrong. There was shame in just being investigated. But over the last decade and a half, more and more people are waking up to the reality: five of every six CPS investigations nationwide are ultimately closed as unfounded or unsubstantiated. Five times out of six, the family that was investigated had done nothing wrong. That’s what changing the narrative looks like: it’s taking us from “everybody knows you must’ve done something wrong” to “everybody knows innocent families get investigated, too.” Only, with hidden foster care, it’s a little different. With hidden foster care, it takes a change of narrative for there to be any narrative at all. The practice is, after all, hidden. It’s off the books. And it’s off the public radar. It is a major win that a paper the size of The Tampa Times is talking about it at all. And that’s just the kind of change we’re looking for every time we invite Andrew, or Josh, or Shanta back on our podcast. Every time we talk about the problems of hidden foster care, it’s with the hope that an investigative reporter might hear something worth looking into and find it happening in their own backyard. I can’t claim that’s what happened in this case. But I can promise you we will continue to do our part, both to call attention to the problem on our podcast, and to offer solutions through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and in your state legislature. Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents, and by bringing hidden foster care into the light of day.

Every year in the United States, more than 50,000 children lose their rights and access to their own parents through a process myopically called “termination of parental rights,” or TPR. A proposed bill in Pennsylvania, House Bill 133 , looks to address this problem in a modest way: by providing a process by which TPR can be reversed in certain situations. Not all circumstances lend themselves to this kind of reversal. First, after the passage of time, the parent must show that the underlying problems that led to the TPR order have been addressed. Parents who lost their children due to addiction, for instance, might need to show that they have successfully completed treatment and remained sober for some period of time. Second, the child must still be in need of a permanent home. Children who have been successfully adopted will not suddenly be uprooted from their new home and sent back to their parents. But children still languishing in the foster care system can be sent home with the court’s approval. Right now in Pennsylvania, a child can bounce from placement to placement and ultimately age out alone, even when there is a fit and loving parent just waiting to bring them home. The courts there have no path, no legal authorization, to return that child to a parent after TPR. Pennsylvania is not the first state to tackle reinstatement of parental rights. California passed the first such law in 2005 and ten states had passed similar statutes by 2010. Today, twenty-six states have some kind of parental reinstatement law on the books: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania HB 133 was introduced by Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-Philadelphia) in September of last year. The bill has fifteen cosponsors, including one Republican, Rep. Sheryl Delozier of Cumberland County. In legislative parlance, that 14-to-1 ratio makes this a “partisan bill,” Delozier’s support notwithstanding. But it shouldn’t be. Parental rights are a vital interest to all Americans, regardless of party, and restoring those rights whenever possible should be important to those on both sides of the aisle. Fortunately, support for the bill was bipartisan when it counted: the bill passed the 202-member Pennsylvania House of Representatives in June by a vote of 191 to 11. Every Democrat and 89 of 100 Republicans voted in favor. Now the bill is in the Senate, where it was referred to the Judiciary Committee on June 25. Frankly, I’d love to see TPR abolished entirely. Terminating parental rights should at least be used as a last resort, when the compelling governmental interest in a child’s safety cannot be met by any other, less restrictive means. (If parental rights are fundamental rights— and they are —then shouldn’t the termination of those rights require the ‘strict scrutiny’ standard accorded to other fundamental rights?) This is a conversation change that will take some time to bring about. Legal scholars Michael Farris and Vivek Sankaran contributed to it with their own discussion in season nine of our EPPiC Broadcast podcast. Now Krajewski’s bill provides another opportunity to move that conversation forward. If you live in Pennsylvania and your state senator is on the Senate Judiciary Committee , please take a moment to reach out and encourage them to take up HB 133 in committee and vote in favor. Urge them to recognize that the rights it would restore are important to all families , Republican and Democrat alike. If you don’t live in Pennsylvania, look for your state on the list above. If it’s not there, perhaps the effort could be taken up in your legislature in the coming session. Why not ask your state lawmaker to look at HB 133 and consider bringing the same law here? Working together, we can shift the conversation, and we can start to bring the children home—in every state. Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents through reinstatement laws like the one being discussed in Pennsylvania this year.

August is one of my favorite months because I get to see supporters like you start to create the legislative landscape of the coming year. It was in August of 2017 that volunteer Patti Sullivan first reached out to her state lawmaker, then-Rep. Erin Grall, to propose a parental rights bill in Florida. Rep. Grall told her she could give her 20 minutes; that turned into a two-and-a-half hour conversation. Now-Senator Grall, an attorney by trade, turned our humble fundamental parental rights model into a full-scale Parents’ Bill of Rights. And in 2021, it passed the legislature and was signed it into law. In 2018, we launched our “Resolutionary” campaign, and volunteer Esther in Indiana responded by reaching out to her lawmakers about a parental rights resolution. Her efforts brought in other nonprofit organizations in the state as the resolution morphed into a parental rights bill that passed in 2025. As amazing as these results were, the fact is that both ladies started out just like you. They read our newsletter because they cared about their families and about parental rights for all of us. But they didn’t stop at reading. They took the next step: they reached out to their lawmakers with language we provided and started a conversation about what is best for families. This year can be your turn! Perhaps, like Patti and Esther, you could take our model policies to your state lawmakers and ask them to champion a bill this coming session. For some lawmakers, election year means an arduous campaign will define the next three months. If we wait for that dust to settle before sharing a model with them, though, the legislative session will be right on top of us. And many lawmakers don’t have that concern because they are strong front-runners, or even running unopposed. So, the time to reach your lawmakers with a parental rights model is right now, this month, before campaigns get too crazy. A Model to Fit Every State Red states might be interested in our Fundamental Parental Rights model , which establishes in the legal code that parental rights are fundamental rights and that the state’s courts must apply strict judicial scrutiny —the highest level of review—to cases involving parental rights. Blue states might want to take up our Child Protection Investigations Reform Act , which requires child welfare investigators to notify parents of their rights from the very start of a child abuse or neglect investigation. And nearly any state in the country could take up our Confidential Reporting model , which has already been adopted, notably, in “very Red” Texas and “very Blue” New York. (California also has a version of this protection; the other 47 states are all fair game to take up the measure in 2027!) This model would require a state’s child abuse hotline to collect personally identifiable information like name and address from anyone calling in an allegation of child abuse or neglect. This will greatly reduce the “weaponization” of the System that is rampant across the country. Other available models address Family Rights in Medical Investigations , providing Central Registry Due Process , Reasonable Childhood Independence , and Due Process for Families Facing Potential Separation (i.e. Hidden Foster Care). Every model was drafted with input from friends on both sides of the political aisle and boasts the support of both right-leaning and left-leaning organizations. And each one has been adopted as a model policy by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative group of organizations and Republican state lawmakers who look to shape policy across the country. What to Do, Step-by-Step First, identify your state lawmakers and secure their contact information. In most states, you’ll have one state senator and one representative, delegate, or assemblyman. (In Nebraska, you just have one senator.) Next, see what you can learn about them in a Google search. Maybe one of these models touches on a topic that their voting record shows is already deeply important to them! Set up a time to visit with them. Take one of our models with you as a starting point. (You can take more in case a subject comes up, but start with just one so you don’t overwhelm them!) Ask them their position on parental rights and if they would consider championing our model in the coming session. If they say “no,” that is not the end! Ask them instead if they know another lawmaker passionate about this issue. (We have gotten many great champion connections this way!) Alternatively, ask them if they would be open to a different model, or to revisit this model at a later time. Finally, when you get home, send them an email or a postcard thanking them for their time and attention. Ultimately you want to build a relationship with them, as this will pay off huge dividends down the road. Listen: everyone who enjoys those key relationships with their lawmakers today started off just reaching out for the first time. Who knows? Yours could be the next great parental rights success story. Why not let it begin this August? Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents through positive legislation in your state , coming in 2027!

PRF President Michael Ramey with HSLDA attorney Tj Schmidt and Louisiana State Representative Beryl Amedee at ALEC 's 2024 meeting in Denver.

A few weeks ago, we announced a new way to stay informed about parental rights through text messages. If you haven't signed up yet, there's still time, and we'd love to have you join us. The landscape of parental rights can change quickly. Court decisions are released, legislation is introduced, and new research becomes available throughout the year. While we will continue sending our regular email updates, text messages allow us to reach you as soon as important developments happen. When you subscribe, you'll receive: Timely alerts about significant parental rights news Notifications when new Foundation research and resources are released Opportunities to take action when your voice can make a difference Important updates delivered directly to your phone Our goal is not to send more messages. It is to make sure you receive the most important updates as quickly as possible. We'll keep our texts focused, relevant, and respectful of your time. As we look ahead to the next legislative season, now is the perfect time to sign up so you'll be ready to receive alerts when they matter most. If you prefer to receive updates only by email, that's perfectly fine. We'll continue sending our regular newsletters just as we always have. But if you'd like the fastest way to stay informed, we encourage you to subscribe today.

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we still “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We also believe these rights include the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their minor children without undue government interference. As we celebrate the first 250 years, we dedicate ourselves to the preservation of this fundamental right, to secure the vital role of the family in our republic for the next 250 and beyond. Happy Anniversary, America, and Happy Independence Day.

We’ve seen and heard about it countless times before. But this time, the target was someone famous. Last week, former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg shared the account of recent events in which his family was the target of a knowingly false and malicious report of child abuse. “You’ve probably heard of ‘swatting,’” Buttigieg’s Substack account begins, referring to the “dangerous kind of hoax” in which “someone anonymously calls 911 with a false report” and then waits for chaos to ensue. “Now imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team. Hadn’t thought of that? Neither had I…” But at the Parental Rights Foundation, we have. (Consider this law review article by Dale Margolin Cecka , and this one from Doriane Lambelet Coleman , for example.) We’ve seen it, heard about it, and formulated a model law that states can adopt to prevent it from happening again. So far, New York and Texas have adopted our Confidential Reporting model, which requires anyone making a report of child abuse to identify themselves first. Buttigieg and his family didn’t have that kind of protection. When a child welfare investigator and a police officer arrived at his home, he naively showed them in, surrendering his Fourth Amendment rights without a fight. When they told him his adopted children would need to sleep elsewhere that night, somewhere away from him, he complied. When they demanded that his children be brought to the agency’s offices the next day to be interviewed with no family members present, he complied with that, too. Finally, late the next day, the police and investigator sat him down again and explained—for the first time—the allegations that had been leveled against him: “An anonymous caller had contacted CPS. The caller said that he had spoken to a woman who claimed to have met me at a conference several years ago in Alabama, where she said I told her I had committed unspeakable violent crimes, and the caller believed my children were at risk,” Buttigieg said in his Substack. “That was all.” Now, there are so many problems with this, from the sudden emergence of “imminent risk” for the children based on information from “several years ago” (it was fine for several years, but now suddenly the children are in danger?) to the fact that the whole thing is at best a second- or third-hand account. But all those problems would have been negated if only the system had required the caller to identify themselves. Had they done so, most callers would have declined to share such a far-fetched and clearly contrived “concern.” And if one had made the call anyway, he or she would themselves be under investigation by now for the false report, and likely facing jail time. Instead, the perpetrator will slink away under the veil of anonymity while Secretary Buttigieg and his family are left to clean up. “Even though the accusation was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement,” Buttigieg again shared in his Substack, “I still worry about the harm it has done.” I have never met Mr. Buttigieg, but I am sure he and I disagree on many more issues than we agree on. He and I lead very different lives and hold many conflicting values; we are definitely on opposite ends of the proverbial boat. But the Fourth Amendment is intended to apply equally to every household . And that means his home should not have been invaded without (1) a warrant based on probable cause, (2) a credible imminent threat, or (3) his free and voluntary consent. This “threat" was years old, which discounts any chance of “imminent threat.” Instead, perhaps the government could have taken a couple more hours to get a warrant—if any judge would give them one. (And, sadly, there are bad judges out there who would have.) Instead, the police officer and the investigator used coercion and the threat of family separation to secure “consent” that is neither free nor voluntary. This violation of the Fourth Amendment should never have happened. The sad truth is that people use anonymous reports to weaponize the child protection system because they can . And if we don’t close that gap, the next story may include another of your political adversaries—or it may include one of your friends. It may even include me or you.

June 30, 2026 // Washington, DC – The United States Supreme Court on Monday granted cert to hear International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. v. Ferguson on appeal from the Ninth Circuit. The constitutional question in the case is “[w]hether parents have standing to challenge a law or policy that deliberately displaces their decision-making role,” according to the SCOTUSblog website. “This is an important and welcome decision by the Supreme Court,” says Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus William Wagner, Vice President of the Parental Rights Foundation. “For more than a century, the Court has recognized that parents, not government officials, hold the primary responsibility and constitutional liberty to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children. When a state policy deliberately interferes with that relationship, parents should not be turned away at the courthouse door.” This case will settle a dispute between the Ninth Circuit and other circuits, as well as existing Supreme Court precedent, regarding whether parents can be denied standing when policies are adopted that threaten their right to make important decisions for their minor children. “The constitutional injury occurs when the State displaces fit parents as the rightful decisionmakers for their children,” Wagner said. “Parents do not need to wait until irreversible harm occurs before seeking judicial protection. The Constitution protects the family precisely because some liberties are too fundamental to be left to bureaucratic discretion.” The case arises from State of Washington policies allowing state actors and shelters to withhold critical information from parents when a child seeks gender-related services. “The Supreme Court’s decision to hear this case reflects the seriousness of the constitutional issues presented,” Wagner said. “A free constitutional republic must respect the family as an institution that precedes the state. Government exists to protect children by respecting the rightful role of loving and fit parents, not by secretly replacing them.” Wagner added that the Court’s review comes at a critical time. “Across the country, parents are asking whether the Constitution still protects their ability to guide, nurture, and care for their children. By agreeing to hear this case, the Supreme Court has taken an important step toward reaffirming that parental liberty remains one of our nation’s oldest and most fundamental rights.”  Media inquiries can be directed to Media@parentalrights.org .

On Monday, June 22, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed two bills touching on the termination of parental rights. Both bills now move to the Pennsylvania Senate. House Bill 133 (HB 133) would add a section to Pennsylvania law providing a pathway for the restoration of parental rights after those rights have been terminated. And House Bill 138 (HB 138) provides that parental incarceration alone shall not be grounds for the termination of parental rights. Both bills are championed by Rep. Rick Krajewski, a Democrat representing West Philadelphia. Under HB 138, an incarcerated parent can retain parental rights if their crime was not one of physical or sexual abuse against the child, and as long as they “mak[e] efforts to the extent feasible to comply with family service plan requirements and otherwise maintain a meaningful role in the child’s life during the time of incarceration.” This means a parent incarcerated for a non-violent crime doesn’t necessarily lose their rights to their children for life (nor do their children lose their rights to connection with their parents) simply due to their incarceration. Of course, the parents lose custody for the time they are in jail, but their relationship is not terminated and can be resumed when the incarcerated parent has served their time. This bill will result in fewer children needing permanent placements through the Office of Children, Youth, and Families (CYF), as many children can be returned to their parents’ care after the incarceration period. Reducing the number of family terminations is a very good thing, and the Parental Rights Foundation supports this bill to keep families together. Unlike HB 138, which aims to preserve families, HB 133 would restore families whose rights have already been terminated. As in other states with similar laws, HB 138 would only apply under certain conditions: Only a (former, rights-terminated) parent, a lawyer representing said parent, a lawyer representing the child, or the agency (CYF) can apply to the court for a restoration of parental rights; They can only do so after at least fifteen months have passed since the termination order was completed or once the child turns 17 years old; and They can only do so if either the child is still in the custody of the Agency with no petition for adoption underway, or the child has been returned to the Agency after a failed adoption. In other words, if no one else has claimed the child in the interim, their original parents can attempt to have them returned. As in other states, the restoration of parental rights once they have been terminated is an uphill climb for the parent. They have to show that the conditions which led to the termination have been significantly changed and that their child will now be safe with them again. But that is as one would expect, if the termination of parental rights was for legal cause in the first place, as the court must assume it was. (Every year, far too many families are permanently separated through the termination of parental rights, including innocent families who should never have been separated in the first place. But later courts do not have the luxury of assuming a termination was wrong; they have to assume that it was correct and make sure its reversal is safe for the children involved.) HB 133, then, will not be a silver bullet allowing parents whose rights were wrongfully terminated to retry their termination and be exonerated. But it does provide a path, albeit an arduous one, by which families can be reunited after a termination. For that reason, the Parental Rights Foundation supports HB 133, as well. (To learn more about the termination of parental rights and its impact on families, check out our EPPiC Broadcast episode with Alex Cinney and Toia Potts here. ) Both bills passed the House Appropriations Committee on Monday, and immediately went to the House Floor. HB 133 passed by a vote of 191-11, and HB 138 passed by a vote of 200-2. As a result, both bills have been submitted to the Pennsylvania Senate for its consideration. What You Can Do If you live in Pennsylvania , consider reaching out to your state senator (the one in Harrisburg, not the ones in D.C.) and urge their support of HB 133 and HB 138 when they come to the Senate for a vote. You can find your lawmaker’s contact information here. And if you don’t live in Pennsylvania , check your state’s laws, or check with your state lawmakers, to see if your state has or could use a law like HB 138 to keep families together beyond a parent’s incarceration, or a law like HB 133 to allow families to be reunited after a termination of parental rights. Together, we can bring good laws like these to additional states, preserving or restoring families all over the country. Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents through these and other efforts in the legislature and in the courts.