Children
Kentucky’s ‘Momnibus’ bill advances in legislature?
FRANKFORT — Members of the Senate Health Services Committee voted unanimously Thursday to advance the maternal health bill which supporters call “Momnibus.”? Momnibus — or House Bill 10 — came out of a bipartisan summer working group of female lawmakers who looked into Kentucky’s dismal maternal mortality and how to address it. Male lawmakers have […]
Kentucky families face difficult decisions if child care funding doesn’t come through?
Courtney Rhoades Mullins faces a difficult predicament: the Eastern Kentucky woman is expecting twins in May but doesn’t know if she can find child care for them any time soon.? One location, she said, might have openings in April of 2025. Another could take the twins — when they are 3 years old.? That “leaves […]
Looser child labor standards revived by committee that had temporarily blocked bill
FRANKFORT — A bill that would allow some teenagers to work longer and later hours advanced out of a Senate committee Friday just a day after the same committee had blocked it. House Bill 255, sponsored by Rep. Phillip Pratt, R-Georgetown, was passed 7-4 out of the Senate Economic Development, Tourism, & Labor Committee in […]
Child labor, food assistance bills stall in Kentucky Senate committee but could get another chance
FRANKFORT — A Senate committee on Thursday blocked House bills that would loosen state restrictions on child labor and tighten eligibility for food assistance, but the measures are not necessarily dead. The committee could consider both bills again at a specially-called meeting Friday, said Sen. Max Wise, chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Economic […]
Bill qualifying more foster parents for child care benefits advances
FRANKFORT — A Louisville Democrat’s bill aimed at getting more foster care parents in Kentucky passed a House committee, placing it two steps from law.? Senate Bill 240 would allow foster parents in Kentucky to qualify for child care benefits while working outside the home or working remotely in the home. Currently they must work […]
Kentucky attorney general among those warning Maine not to enact medical shield law
Kentucky’s Russell Coleman is among 16 state attorneys general threatening legal action if Maine enacts a law shielding its medical providers from penalties for providing reproductive and gender-affirming care to residents of other states. The Republican attorneys general assert such a law would be “extraterritorial bullying” and “could also trigger a rapid tit-for-tat escalation that […]
Louisville launching five-year plan for universal preschool
FRANKFORT — Kentucky’s largest city took steps Tuesday to implement universal, free and optional preschool for its 3- and 4-year-old citizens.? Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg announced that a new nonprofit called Thrive by 5 Louisville will work over the next five years with both public and private dollars to get children in the city better […]
Kentucky Republican pitches $165 million to improve care, safety of juveniles in state detention
FRANKFORT — Kentucky would spend $22 million to build a special mental health juvenile detention facility as well as create a process to test and treat such children under a sweeping bill being discussed in the legislature.? Sen. Danny Carroll, a West Kentucky Republican, filed Senate Bill 242 as a shell bill on the last […]
House bill encouraging local governments to meet child care challenges moves to full Senate
FRANKFORT — A Kentucky House bill that encourages local governments to examine available zoning for child care centers received unanimous approval by a Senate committee Tuesday.? House Bill 561 cleared the House in late February. Now that it cleared the Senate Families and Children Committee 9-0, it can go to the Senate floor.? “A lot […]
Both of these women needed to end their pregnancies. Only one got to do it on her terms.
Jennifer Vollstedt and Ariel Cavanaugh-Okhah have never met, but they are connected by fatal chromosomal abnormalities that affected their wanted pregnancies, and the stress and heartbreak that come with it. Their experiences of needing to terminate their pregnancies were quite different. One took place before the Dobbs ruling overturned Roe and the federal right to […]
Kentucky will help pilot ‘innovative’ approaches to helping children, families thrive, thanks to grant from Doris Duke Foundation
Kentucky will share in a $30 million grant seeking to build supports for families who fall through cracks in the child welfare system.? The Doris Duke Foundation is funding the three-year initiative called Opt-in for Families (Opportunities for Prevention and Transformation). Pilot sites will be in Kentucky, South Carolina, Oregon and Washington, D.C. A release […]
IVF controversy echoes memorable debate in Kentucky House 40 years ago
Veteran Kentucky lawmakers call it one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the state’s General Assembly.? Memory of it has revived this spring as the nation — and Kentucky lawmakers — weigh a controversy over in vitro fertilization, a way to help infertile couples have a baby. “What happened back in the […]