Kelly emphasizes the importance of strong families, faith-based providers during Ways & Means hearing addressing America's children

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- On Wednesday, during a Ways & Means Committee hearing entitled "Strengthening Child Welfare and Protecting America’s Children," U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Tax, emphasized the importance of strong family units and the role faith-based welfare providers and foster care programs play in caring for younger Americans. The hearing examined challenges within and facing the child welfare and foster care systems.

"Children are 25 percent of our population, but they are 100 percent of our future. We must ensure families and children are set up for success, so no one has to endure hardships and trauma when all they are seeking is a loving home," Rep. Kelly said. "This is why I remain a champion for faith-based organizations, which have always played an extraordinary role in caring for our nation’s most vulnerable children. Millions of Americans are better off today because of their noble work."

Kelly leads the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act, legislation which protects child welfare providers from being discriminated against for acting in accordance with their deeply held religious beliefs and prohibits federal, state and local government agencies that receive federal adoption assistance funding from discriminating against child welfare service providers based on the providers’ unwillingness to take action contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs. Rep. Kelly leads the bill in the U.S. House while Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) leads legislation in the U.S. Senate.

During the hearing, Rep. Kelly questioned witness Tori Hope Petersen. Ms. Petersen entered the foster care system twice in her life due to the physical and emotional abuse she endured while living with her mother, who struggled with mental illness due to her own childhood trauma and being sex trafficked as a young teen into her adulthood. Ms. Petersen, now an author and public speaker, discussed the role her faith and the benefits of faith-based care during the hearing.

"The leadership of my church allowed me opportunities and encouraged me to share my story," Ms. Petersen said in her prepared remarks. "By witnessing their love for me and other kids in the foster care system, I began to believe that Jesus might love me too, and I gained a confidence I didn’t have before... I believe our society would significantly enhance outcomes for youth if we created greater incentives for churches, communities, and nonprofits to wrap around children, foster families, and kinship providers before youth turn eighteen, because the church, faith-based organizations, and our communities are a central component to the needs and well-being of foster children, as they help prepare them for adulthood."

The hearing also included entrepreneur and child welfare protection activist Paris Hilton, who cited her own negative experiences while staying at a youth residential treatment facility.

"When I was 16 years old, I was ripped from my bed in the middle of the night and transported across state lines to the first of four youth residential treatment facilities. These programs promised 'healing, growth, and support,' but instead did not allow me to speak, move freely, or even look out of a window for two years. I was force-fed medications and sexually abused by staff. I was violently restrained and dragged down hallways, stripped naked, and thrown into solitary confinement. My parents were completely deceived - lied to and manipulated by this for-profit industry… so can you only imagine the experience for youth who don’t have anyone
checking in on them?" Hilton said in her prepared remarks.

You can watch the hearing here.