Provides relative to a caregiver providing care to a child in need of care proceedings. (8/1/26)

Senate Bill 333 enacts new Children's Code Article 710.1 to establish the role and rights of caregivers in child in need of care proceedings. The statute creates a formal definition of caregiver to include relatives by blood or marriage, foster parents, pre-adoptive parents, and nonrelatives with court-approved physical custody of the child. Courts must provide notice to caregivers of disposition and permanency hearings and must solicit and consider testimony and information from caregivers regarding the child's safety and well-being, placement stability, attachment and emotional development, correction of conditions necessitating state intervention, and ongoing risk factors affecting reunification. The bill establishes a mechanism for caregivers to obtain limited participatory status upon motion if they have provided continuous care for at least six months and if participation serves the child's best interests. Caregivers with limited participatory status may testify and present evidence regarding safety and permanency placement but remain nonparties and do not diminish parental constitutional rights. Courts must consider all evidence presented by caregivers in termination of parental rights proceedings and retain discretion to consider caregiver evidence in reunification and termination determinations.

The practical effect of this legislation extends primarily to foster parents, kinship caregivers, and other adults with court-approved custody who seek greater voice in permanency proceedings. These caregivers gain a statutory right to notice of hearings and to present information about the child in their care, which previously may not have been guaranteed. After six months of continuous care, caregivers can petition for limited participatory status, allowing formal testimony and evidence presentation regarding the child's welfare and placement stability. This increases their influence on judicial decisions about reunification and termination of parental rights while maintaining their non-party status. Parents retain all constitutional protections, and caregivers cannot challenge parental rights or advocate as formal parties. The statute particularly benefits kinship caregivers and foster parents who have developed significant relationships with children in their care and can provide relevant observations about attachment, stability, and risk factors that judicial officers may not otherwise hear directly.

This legislation operates within Louisiana's child in need of care system established in the Children's Code and must be read in conjunction with existing provisions governing disposition and permanency hearings, termination of parental rights, and case planning requirements. The statute explicitly preserves compliance with federal law, particularly the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which governs permanency timelines and reunification standards in federally funded child welfare programs. The bill also modifies the legal weight given to parental compliance with services by providing that completion of services or technical compliance with case plans alone does not create a presumption favoring reunification unless the underlying risk to the child has been eliminated. This requirement affects how courts weigh evidence of parental progress and shifts focus toward actual elimination of dangers rather than mere programmatic completion. The new article integrates with existing Children's Code provisions addressing parental rights, case planning, and dispositional orders while creating a formal mechanism for caregiver input that reflects evolving jurisprudential emphasis on placing the child's best interests and permanency stability at the center of in need of care proceedings.