Ramirez Named Acting Chair of Adoption & Child Welfare Committee, Holds First Hearing

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.  – State Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Chicago, recently became the acting chair of the House Adoption & Child Welfare Committee. She presided over her first hearing this week.

“I have spent my career working alongside our most marginalized communities, many of them who were children and youth experiencing hunger and homelessness.  I am honored to continue the fight for equity as chair of a committee dedicated to the welfare of one of our most vulnerable populations: our children,” Ramirez said. “Decades of divestment and a lack of accountability has led to the erosion of supportive services for families and children in the state’s care. My goal with this committee is to discover solutions on how we can empower families to stay intact when possible and to ensure the safety of all of our children.”

Ramirez has championed a number of measures to support the well being of Illinois children. She passed House Bill 2649 that created a comprehensive task force tasked with identifying concrete ways to ensure the protection, support and rights of children of incarcerated parents. She also passed House Bill 2723 to enhance the Task Force on Strengthening the Child Welfare Workforce, tasked with improving the workforce of child welfare workers to ensure better outcomes for children who come into contact with the system. Her bill strengthened the task force by including the input of organizations on the ground working to keep children safe and maintain family units.

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