Through programs, initiatives, partnerships and advocacy, the Mayor’s Office of Children & Family Success works to improve the lives of Baltimore’s children, youth and families.

Changing policies and systems must be part of this work.

Policy areas that can improve life opportunities for Baltimore’s young people—and where we focus our advocacy as a result—include:

• Increasing investment in public schools

• Protecting family leave for new parents

• Increasing funding for the state’s child care scholarship program

• Reducing referrals of youth to detention locations far from home

• Reducing adult charges for youth and incarceration of youth in adult prisons

• Limiting police presence in schools

• Eliminating indefinite probation for youth

• Expanding food assistance benefits for youth (e.g., SNAP)

• Increasing resources for youth mental health care

The 2021 Maryland legislative session was a very good one for the communities we work to lift up and support. There is still a lot of work to do to remove the structural barriers to resources, opportunities and success our children and families face.

Here are the 2021 bills that are particularly impactful for young people—and that align to the work of the Mayor’s Office of Children & Family Success and help advance the seven priorities of the Baltimore Children’s Cabinet.

Education

Blueprint for MD’s Future (Kirwan)
This landmark education reform legislation passed during the 2020 General Assembly session, but was vetoed by Gov. Larry Hogan. During the 2021 session, the legislature successfully overrode the veto and amended the legislation to preserve the state’s commitment to better funding, and creating equity across its public school systems. This session’s actions put into law historic investments in our public schools, and realize a supplemental investment in the recovery of learning loss among Maryland pre-k-12 students due to the pandemic.

Built to Learn Act of 2020
The veto override of the Blueprint for MD’s Future enacted the Built to Learn Act of 2020, which passed in 2020 and will provide additional school construction funding to address the billions of dollars in Maryland’s unmet school construction and maintenance needs—and give our children the school buildings they deserve. For Baltimore City, specifically, this will mean additional resources to renovate and build high school buildings.

Historically Black Colleges & Universities-Funding (SB001)
The successful passage of this bill in 2021 means new state funding for Maryland’s HBCUs. It is the result of the settlement of a lawsuit aimed at reversing historic inequities in state HBCU funding, and will help move underfunded HBCUs toward financial sustainability. Specifically, the bill requires $577 million in annual state HBCU funding, FY2023-FY2032, and it advances longstanding efforts to ensure that all students have access to an excellent education—especially for our young people in Baltimore City, home to one of the state’s most underfunded school districts and two of its HBCUs.

Early Childhood Development

Growing Family Child Care Opportunities Pilot Program (HB944)
This bill makes possible new grant funding for family child care providers, a critical, but often-overlooked resource in the child care provider landscape. Its successful passage this session requires the Maryland State Department of Education to establish the Growing Family Child Care Opportunities Pilot Program to provide grants for up to $150,000 to individuals interested in opening family child care centers. The bill also helps reduce the many current barriers to becoming a family child care operator. See how this bill will also be important in advancing the Baltimore Children’s Cabinet priority of increasing overall access to high-quality early childhood development programs and opportunities for Baltimore’s families here.

Youth Food Insecurity

Neighborhood Business Development Program (SB365)
This bill, passed during the 2021 session, expands the scope of the Neighborhood Business Development Program to include actively attracting and retaining businesses in communities with food deserts, and leveraging small loans of up to $100,000 to support that effort. Read more about the work of the Children’s Cabinet to reduce youth food insecurity here, and about the work of the efforts of the Mayor’s Office of Children & Family Success and its many partners to minimize hunger during the pandemic here.

Youth Homelessness

Tuition Exemption for Foster Care Recipients and Homeless Youth (SB155)
This bill creates a college tuition exemption for youth experiencing homelessness and in foster care. Built into the exemption will be a focus on reducing technical barriers to the college application process for youth experiencing homelessness and in foster care, and generating data to better inform the higher education community and stakeholders about their experiences and the life challenges they face.

Youth Literacy

Adult High School Pilot Program (SB630)
This bill supports the proposed adult high school in South Baltimore with $250,000 in annual state funding. The school focuses on young adults that have aged out of school, and in addition to providing academic supports, it will feature—through collaboration with the Baltimore Children’s Cabinet—a community hub with a range of resources and supports, including mental health care and housing services. Read more in the Children’s Cabinet 2021 Action Plan here.

Trauma-Informed Care for Youth

Healing Maryland's Trauma Act (SB299)
In many ways a reflection of Baltimore City’s own Elijah Cummings Healing City Act and the work of the Trauma-Informed Care Task Force that local legislation established, this successful 2021 bill will establish the Commission on Trauma-Informed Care to mandate training in trauma-informed care for state employees in order to make delivery of services trauma-responsive and trauma-informed. The bill also requires the newly created state commission to explore ways the state can better screen for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to lay the groundwork for more substantive trauma-informed care policies down the road. This latter action aligns directly to a 2021 action of the Baltimore’s Children Cabinet to pursue changes to state policies to make collection of information on ACEs part of standard health care at pediatricians’ offices and community clinics. Read more on that here.

Maryland Health Equity Resource Act (SB172)
With its passage, this bill establishes a permanent Health Equity Resource Community program to provide grants for expanding health care services in underserved communities. It is a particularly important step forward in expanding mental health care in those communities that are left out when it comes to the standards of care that should be available to all. We look forward to putting this program to work for Baltimore, especially as part of the Children’s Cabinet efforts to build awareness around mental health resources and reduce stigma with youth. Read more.

Youth Diversion

Juvenile Restoration Act (SB494) and Juvenile Justice Reform (HB1187)
There were two vital pieces of legislation this past session designed to launch a long overdue transformation of Maryland’s racially inequitable and inhumane juvenile justice system.

The Juvenile Justice Reform Act (SB494), which passed, will eliminate life sentences without parole for children and permit a person who was convicted of a crime committed while the person was a minor to file for a sentence reduction. It is unconscionable that until now Maryland children could be incarcerated for life and the end to this practice is essential and right. This bill supports the belief that no child is beyond the hope of redemption, and we are grateful to all those who pushed for this bill to pass, including the Youth Diversion Workgroup of the Baltimore Children’s Cabinet.

The second bill, Juvenile Justice Reform (HB1187), would set a minimum age for incarcerating youth (there currently isn’t one), ban youth incarceration for low-level offenses, limit terms of probation and increase youth diversion. Technically the bill passed, but these four policy changes were stripped from it prior to passage. The final bill that passed extends the Juvenile Justice Reform Council through 2022 and allocates $2million annually for ROCA, in support of its work to disrupt incarceration, poverty and racism by engaging the young adults, police and systems at the center of violence in relationships to address trauma, find hope and drive change. We will keep advocating for the policy changes this bill represented and return next year to support what we expect to be a more comprehensive bill.