CWA Local 6355 Wins Health Care for Foster Care Workers

Willene Young of Local 6355 holds just signed-law that gives health care access to foster care parents who help children with special needs.

Foster care providers in Missouri who provide specialized foster care to children with intense medical, behavioral or psychological needs now will be covered by the state employee health insurance plan, thanks to a legislative campaign by CWA Local 6355.

Local 6355 President Bradley Harmon said CWA activists worked hard to get the measure passed. The local's United Foster Parents of Missouri unit has been working with foster parents throughout the state, and hundreds of union members contacted members of the General Assembly about the measure. HB 1576 passed with overwhelming support in both houses of the General Assembly.

CWA 6355 Foster Care Area Representative Tracey Miller said members were "elated" at Governor Jay Nixon's decision to sign the bill into law. "United Foster Parents of Missouri will continue to push the General Assembly to provide Missouri's foster care providers and the children they serve with the necessary resources to help Missouri's most vulnerable kids," she said.

UFPM Member and career foster care provider Willene Young said, "This is going to make a real difference in my life, right away, and it wouldn't have happened without the collective effort of all of our union members who called and wrote their elected officials and lobbied in-person in Jefferson City. There is power in numbers, and this law is proof," she said.

Miller had reached out to one of the key chairpersons who himself was becoming a foster parent. Foster care providers are required to have a special license to care for children with special needs and can't hold another job.

Bradley said the local had been organizing foster care workers since 2009. "We've been building on the model of the University of Tennessee campus workers, who have a dynamic union even though they don't have collective bargaining rights. We're working toward recognition and a contract, but don't expect that any time soon. We really appreciate the support of our vice president, Claude Cummings, in this campaign and all our work. Not every union would embrace this approach, but CWA has given us full support."