For the first time in Missouri a “Baby Box,” allowed in state law thanks to a 2021 House bill, has been used to safely hand over a newborn to emergency officials.
Last Thursday a baby girl believed to have been several hours old was left in the “Safe Haven Baby Box” at a Mehlville Fire Protection District Station 2. The child was taken to a local hospital, and is now in state custody. Authorities said she is in perfect health.
The Baby Box, installed in August and the only one in Missouri, is built into an outer wall at the Fire Station. It allowed the mother to place the girl into a bassinet and close the door. This triggered alarms in the fire station to let personnel know that a child had been relinquished.
Missouri law has since 2002 allowed for babies to be dropped off at places including hospitals and fire stations. The 2021 proposal from Representative Jim Murphy (R-St. Louis) to allow Baby Boxes in Missouri meant to expand on that 2002 law, to allow a person to drop off a baby without interacting with anyone, and with complete anonymity.
Murphy shared the news with his fellow legislators on Monday, and commended the little girl’s mother.
“She should be honored for making a great decision for a baby girl, who now will have a fruitful life,” said Murphy. “I personally would like to thank everybody in this body who voted for that bill, because today we celebrate life and saving a baby’s life, and I think that’s something worth celebrating and I think we should all be very proud of that.”
The first Baby Box in Missouri has been installed, and more are coming.
Representative Jim Murphy (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Baby Boxes are an extension of the Safe Haven law, which allows parents to relinquish a newborn up to 45 days old without fear of prosecution. That law, in place in Missouri since 2002, allows for babies to be dropped off at places including hospitals and fire stations, but Baby Boxes offer an option for parents who don’t want face-to-face contact.
The first Box in the state is in his district, at Mehlville Fire Protection District Station 2. There is a commitment for a second Box at Mehlville, and more fire stations in the state are expressing interest.
Murphy said the Safe Haven Law is saving the lives of children.
The box is built into an outer wall at the Mehlville Fire Station. A parent can open it, place a baby inside in a bassinet, and close the door. Alarms will alert personnel on duty, who will remove the bassinet and take the baby to a hospital.
Founder and CEO of Safe Haven Baby Boxes Monica Kelsey helped guide the legislation that allows for these Boxes in Missouri and other states. So far more than 160 have been installed.
She said there are many reasons a parent might want to give up a child, including factors like financial struggles, mental health issues, or domestic abuse. She wants people to support those who utilize the Safe Haven Law.
The installation of this Baby Box has gotten a lot of attention, but Murphy and Kelsey want to stress that it is not the only place in the state to drop off a child.
Since its installation in August, the Box in Mehlville hasn’t been used. Since the Safe Haven Law was adopted in Missouri in 2002, 61 babies have been surrendered.
Kelsey said those who want to see a Baby Box installed in their community can contact her organization for help.
For mothers in need of help, the Safe Haven Crisis Line is (866) 99BABY1. Kelsey’s organization, Safe Haven Baby Boxes, can be found online at shbb.org.
Missouri legislators hope one of the bills they’ve sent to the governor will lead to more children being adopted into loving homes.
Representative Hannah Kelly (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
One of the provisions in Senate Bill 24 would expand Missouri’s adoption tax credit, which offers a nonrefundable tax credit for one-time adoption-related expenses such as attorney fees, up to $10,000 per child. That credit is capped at $6-million a year. SB 24 would remove that cap, makes the tax credit refundable, and would have the per-child limit adjust with inflation.
Those proposed changes are now awaiting action by Governor Mike Parson (R), and their House sponsor, Hannah Kelly (R-Mountain Grove), couldn’t be happier.
More than 2,200 Missouri children are awaiting adoption. Representative Keri Ingle (D-Lee’s Summit) once worked as an adoption specialist with the state Children’s Division, and said most of the families who would adopt those children see the system as complicated and laced with prohibitive expenses.
The bill is especially personal for Kelly, who talks often to her colleagues and in public settings about her own experience adopting her then-teenage daughter.
Representative Keri Ingle (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Ingle said even as other issues have caused tension between her party and Republicans there has been a lot of cooperation on issues like this one, and she’s been glad to be a part of it.
The House’s final vote on SB 24 was 139-5. It now awaits the governor’s decision to either sign it into law, veto it, or allow it to become law without his action.
A House member wants the state to put more effort into finding family members with whom to place children who are taken into state custody, before placing them with strangers.
Representative Dave Griffith speaks with Alysa Jackson (left) and Sarah Bashore (right) with the Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Association (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Griffith’s House Bill 1563 would require the Division to make “diligent searches” for biological parents when a child enters state custody. In the case of an emergency placement, the Division would search for grandparents. If they can’t be found or aren’t fit, it would then look for other relatives for placement within 30 days.
Sarah Bashore with the Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Association told the committee that her agency, serving 24 counties, helped find family members for 34 children in state care in the last two quarters of the last fiscal year. She said it could help even more children, but the Children’s Division hasn’t being asking.
She believes as employees with the Division leave and are replaced, those new hires simply don’t know that her agency and others like it are available, or how they can be used.
Bashore said her agency and others are simply more capable and have more resources than Children’s Division for doing the kinds of searches that Griffith’s bill would require, and with compelling results.
The legislature has proposed several measures meant to give more Missouri children a chance to get out of the foster care system and into permanent homes, and to help foster and adoptive parents afford the costs of caring for and adopting children.
Representative Hannah Kelly watches as fellow legislators cast votes for one of the two foster care reform bills she sponsored. (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
House Bills 429 and 430 were agreed to this week and now await action by Governor Mike Parson (R), who lawmakers say has indicated support for them. Mountain Grove Republican Hannah Kelly sponsored both.
HB 430 would expand current tax credits for the adoption of Missouri children with disabilities to be available in any adoption, while giving priority to instances involving Missouri children with disabilities. Kelly said of a program capped at $6-million a year, less than $30,000 was claimed last year.
She said by allowing a broader offering of this credit, more Missouri children will have the opportunities for permanent families.
HB 429 authorizes an income tax deduction for expenses related to providing care as a foster parent.
It also creates a “Birth Match” program. It would require the state Children’s Division and the State Registrar’s Office to compare birth reports with information on parents who have been convicted of certain crimes. When parents have history of the specified crimes, Division personnel will make contact with the family to see if any action is appropriate.
This could include seeing whether any crimes are being committed, but Kelly said in a broader sense it is about seeing whether the family is in need of any of the types of assistance the state could facilitate.
HB 429 also increases the age threshold for abandoned infants and children from one year or under to under three years old. It sets a time frame of six months before a petition of termination of parental rights is considered in cases of neglect by a parent.
Foster care reform is a priority for House Speaker Rob Vescovo. (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
Kelly said by restructuring this and other parts of law, impediments to giving a child a permanent home are removed.
Kelly credits House Speaker Rob Vescovo (R-Arnold) with making the legislation a priority, which pushed these bills to be the first non-budget measures sent to the governor this year. She said not only did he make these issues priorities, he bravely, publicly shared his own personal story of having been in Missouri’s foster care system as further evidence of the need for reform.