5 years later, Nebraska patching cracks exposed by safe-haven debacle

Five years ago in February, Nebraska lawmakers passed a so-called "safe haven" measure meant to give parents a safe, quick and legal way to drop off babies for whom they were unable or unwilling to care.

At the time, Nebraska was one of only four states without such a law. 

What resulted was a wave of children -- many of them teenagers, some from out of state and most with behavioral problems -- being dropped off at fire stations, hospitals and other designated safe haven sites.

The Nebraska law grew from two similar bills (LB6 and LB157) introduced respectively by Sens. Rich Pahls of Omaha and Arnie Stuthman of Platte Center.

In introducing his measure to the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, Pahls said: "The purpose of this legislation is to provide distressed parents a way to anonymously leave a child in a safe place rather than abandoning the child in a place that could lead to harm or death of the child."

As introduced, the bill applied to children 30 days of age and younger.

Stuthman's bill would have allowed a parent to leave an infant with an on-duty firefighter or hospital staff member within 72 hours of birth.

During a hearing on the bills before the Judiciary Committee, Pahls said: "Currently, there is no way for a teen mother, illegal immigrant or a victim of domestic violence to remain completely anonymous if they must give up their child. We want to stress the importance of privacy for people who have extreme circumstances."

The committee liked the safe haven idea, rolled the 30-day age limit into Stuthman's bill and sent it to the floor for debate.

But some lawmakers then began questioning the age limit.

Sen. Gwen Howard of Omaha said during second-round debate that "in order to provide a greater measure of safety for all children, we simply put in the term 'child' in the measure with no age limit." She acknowledged that the Department of Health and Human Services worried that such wording "would open the door to individuals that would choose to, say, leave an adolescent at a hospital.

"I don't know if that's a concern that really would become a pressing problem," she said. "But I'd like to give Senator Stuthman the opportunity to respond to that."

Stuthman said he struggled with the age limit: "We had 72 hours in one of the bills. We had 30 days old. There were concerns about, is it 72 hours old, is it 80 hours old, is it 30 days old, is it 50 days old? How can you determine that?

"That is one of the reasons behind inserting the word 'child,'" he said. "My main emphasis is on the small child, the protection of that small child and the safety of that child. And we've got to keep in mind, the main thing is the safety of the child."

Sen. Pete Pirsch of Omaha led a group of senators who advocated putting the term "child" in the bill.

"Their concern was ... not only a difficulty in establishing the age, but a difficulty in understanding why ... should you not start to care about the safety of the child -- if it's 3 days old, 6 days old, 9 days old, 9 months old, you know, a year-and-a-half old. At what age ... shouldn't we be most focused about the best interests of that child?"

So the bill was amended to say simply "child" -- with no age delineated -- and the Legislature, on a 41-1 vote made Nebraska the last state to have a so-called safe haven law -- though most states had age limits ranging from 3 days to about a month.

Gov. Dave Heineman signed the measure into law Feb. 18, 2008, and it became effective that July.

And it took only about three months for Heineman to call lawmakers back into special session to fix the law, saying he could wait no longer to address what had become a state embarrassment.

When Heineman announced the special session, 23 children had been left at Nebraska hospitals, including nine from one family and children from Iowa, Michigan and Georgia. Many were teenagers, only one was younger than 6, and none were babies. And most had behavioral problems that made their parents desperate to seek help.

“We’ve had five in the last eight days,” Heineman said the day he called a special session. “We all hoped this wouldn’t happen. This law needs to be changed to reflect its original intent” to protect infants.

Lawmakers convened Nov. 14 and changed the law to apply to children 30 days old and younger.

In all, 35 children were left at safe haven drop-off sites, the last a 14-year-old boy driven from California by his mother and dropped just across the Wyoming-Nebraska border at Kimball County Hospital the day before the 30-day age limit took effect.

The avalanche of abandoned children had revealed inadequate services in Nebraska and other states for families struggling to raise troubled youngsters. Parents who had used the law and children's rights groups begged the Legislature not to lower the age limit, saying the safe-haven statute was the only resource for desperate families.

State Sen. Annette Dubas, one of the few to vote against the revised law, said those pleas touched her.

"I just couldn't in good conscience vote to support this bill, knowing it was going to close the door on getting services for older children," Dubas said at the time. "This law may not have been the best way to handle it, but it provided options for them."

Lawmakers have since been wrestling with how best to provide adequate services for children, including those with behavioral problems. Last year, they passed a sweeping overhaul of the child welfare system, the effect of which remains to be seen.

Among other things, the package of bills created:

* A Children’s Commission and Inspector General for child welfare (LB821).

* A requirement for more transparency and reporting on child welfare spending, financial benchmarks, a strategic plan and a separate child welfare budget (LB949).

* A plan for a Web-based, statewide automated child welfare information system (LB1160).

* Increases in foster parent payments, licensing changes and a requirement that the state HHS apply for a federal foster care demonstration project (LB820).

* A requirement to bring case management in most of the state under HHS and put caseload standards in place (LB961).

Dubas says that though the state has made strides to increase programs for children with behavioral problems, there still are deficiencies in access to services and the number of appropriately trained professionals and gaps in insurance coverage.

"At the time of the safe haven special session ... we were at ground zero," she said. "I hope and pray we have made progress and that we will continue to recognize the need for more education across the board when it comes to mental health issues, especially with children. There is still much to be done."