How important are children to our society?
It’s a question I’ve asked repeatedly over the past three years, as I’ve fought to protect and speak up for the most vulnerable among us: children in foster care. These children don’t choose the circumstances they’re born into. They arrive in this world because of adult decisions. And it is adult actions — addiction, violence, neglect, or instability — that often land them in state custody.
Once there, the injustice only deepens. Despite being at the mercy of systems that control every aspect of their lives — where they live, who they see, whether they stay with siblings, and when they can go home— foster children in North Carolina have no guaranteed right to legal representation. Meanwhile, the adults who abuse or exploit them do. In our courts, accused predators are given attorneys and afforded a speedy trial. But the children they’ve harmed — those in the crosshairs of abuse, abandonment, and broken systems — are voiceless.
There are approximately 11,000 children in foster care across North Carolina. Each one lacks what should be a cornerstone of our justice system: representation. Imagine being a child shuffled from home to home, unable to speak up in court, while adults make decisions about your life without truly knowing you. Would you feel like you mattered?
House Bill 612, titled the “Fostering Care in NC Act,” is currently moving through the North Carolina General Assembly. It passed the House and now awaits action in the Senate. Yet despite its promising name, HB 612 does little to address the systemic failures harming our children. Most notably, it fails to guarantee that children in foster care have their own client-directed attorney — someone whose sole job is to represent their expressed wishes and legal rights in court, not just what others think is best for them.
This isn’t just a moral oversight — it’s a data-backed mistake. Research from the American Bar Association shows that children with legal counsel exit foster care into permanent families up to 3.5 times faster, with no negative effect on reunification efforts. That means fewer years spent in limbo, less trauma from placement disruptions, and a better chance at healing and thriving.
Children in North Carolina’s foster system are moved an average of three times per year. Each move severs bonds, disorients young minds, and reinforces the message that they are unwanted or unsafe. The long-term impact? A significantly higher risk of depression, PTSD, chronic illness, homelessness, incarceration, and suicide. We cannot keep asking children to endure this while failing to provide the protections they deserve.
One small but meaningful step in the right direction would be to amend Section 13.(b) of HB 612 — specifically (B1)(4), found on page 13, line 30. As written, the bill limits the ability of caregivers to object to a child’s removal unless the court-ordered plan is adoption. That may sound reasonable — until you realize how few children it actually protects.
According to the most recent AFCARS (Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System) data, only 25% of North Carolina’s foster children have adoption as a permanency goal — and that’s with the current Guardian ad Litem program in place. Of those, 55% have already been in care for over two years, and nearly a quarter for more than 30 months. That means 75% of children in our system wouldn’t benefit from this provision at all. What happens to the majority who are instead caught in a revolving door of failed reunifications, temporary placements, and broken promises?
Removing the adoption-only language from Section 13.(b) would allow any caregiver who has cared for a child for the previous 12 consecutive months to object to a removal, present evidence, and cross-examine witnesses in court. This change wouldn’t hinder reunification or adoption — it would simply ensure that a stable, long-term caregiver’s voice is heard before a child is moved again. It’s a commonsense reform to reduce trauma and promote stability.
But we can’t stop there. Children in foster care need more than procedural tweaks — they need rights. Chief among them: the right to a client-directed attorney. North Carolina already provides attorneys for birth parents and social workers. Why not for the child, who stands to lose the most? Appointing such counsel doesn’t mean every child will get their way — it ensures they are heard. And it aligns with core American values: fairness, voice, and due process.
North Carolina must do better. We must stop treating foster children as afterthoughts in a bureaucratic maze. The trauma they endure today affects who they become tomorrow — students, workers, parents, citizens. If we want a stronger state and a more just society, we must start by ensuring these children are seen, heard, and protected.
The Fostering Care in NC Act may have a compassionate title, but titles don’t protect children — policy does. And right now, this policy fails to meet the moment. If lawmakers truly want to reform foster care, they must listen to the voices of those living through it. And right now, those voices are silenced.
Guarantee legal counsel. Amend HB 612. Give North Carolina’s foster children the voice and protection they deserve.
Because if they don’t matter to us — what does?