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Foster Care
All states receive federal dollars to be used to help pay
for children currently in the foster care system. Florida was granted a 'waiver' to allow these dollars to also be
used to help prevent children from actually entering the system in the first place. This is referred to as the Title IV Waiver,
and has been an incredibly successful program. This year, we helped educate our elected officials about the importance of
this money and the success of the program, and this program is successfully continuing. We also worked to increase the age
of children in the foster care system to 21, and legislation permitting that went a long way this session, but did not ultimately
pass. We also worked to educate our legislators as to current abuses in the foster care system and how potentially those could
be alleviated.
Cybercrimes
SPAC worked
with Senator Benacquisto and Senator Bogdanoff to support bills that they had related to sexual images of children online
and and issues pertaining to cyberbullying. Unfortunately, those particular bills did not pass this year, but another bill
that we supported regarding 'sexting' (lessening the crime of sending naked pictures across cell phones for children
under the age of 18) did pass and is awaiting the signature of our Governor. (Representative Abruzzo / Senator Dean).
Sexting Bill - SB 0888(2011)
Miami Hearld Blog
Booster Seat Legislation
Due in part to herculean efforts
on the part of our delegates all over the state and their efforts within their own leagues, we had great success furthering
our mission of having children in booster seats after the age of 3. The first house bill ended up with 75 co-sponsors
(amazing !) and when that bill died in a committee that was headed by an opponent of this bill, it was then added to a transportation
bill in the Senate which went back and forth before dying at 3am amongst much political rallying on the final night of session.
Based on the current climate in our state capitol, we are VERY proud to have had such a successfully positive influence with
this issue in Tallahassee and continue education and advocacy at our local League levels.
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