Continuing to Advocate for Our Children
By Rep. Julie A. Casimiro
This legislative session will be remembered for hard work, thoughtful deliberation and collaboration that made possible many improvements for the people of Rhode Island. Faced with a budget shortfall that made resources tight, the General Assembly focused on the fundamental needs that affect everyone, particularly health care and housing.
We passed numerous bills to address our crisis-level shortage of primary care providers from all sides of the issue, raising reimbursement levels, supporting training, reducing administrative burdens and protecting patients’ access to prescriptions when they can’t find a PCP.
Laudably, Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi kept his promise to focus on housing, passing a suite of legislation developed with stakeholders to cut red tape, enable and encourage the development of comfortable, safe housing that everyday people can afford and create better opportunities to redevelop unused properties to encourage vibrant, safe, sustainable neighborhoods where people want to live.
In keeping with this focus on meeting the most basic, human needs of Rhode Islanders, I have fought for many years to improve the lives of vulnerable children, particularly those in state care.
While some of my highest-priority bills did not pass this year, after many years of pilot programs, we were able to provide stable funding for statewide mobile youth crisis response teams, which provide the gold standard of care for children and youth who are experiencing a mental health crisis (2025-H 6118A). This means instead of languishing in emergency rooms that cannot address their needs, children experiencing mental or behavioral health crises will have access to behavioral health clinicians trained to deescalate crises and provide the counseling and follow-up they need. This will improve kids’ outcomes while also easing the burden on overtaxed emergency departments.
We also enacted legislation (2025-H 5598A) I sponsored to prohibit students from using cell phones during the school day, which research shows will not only improve educational outcomes, but improve their overall mental health. Experiences in states and districts that have banned cell phones is schools have been overwhelmingly positive, improving attentiveness and social interaction and decreasing bullying and other behavioral problems.
Next year, I would like to be able to point to many more achievements that will move Rhode Island out of its last-in-New England ranking for child welfare.
We must end the practice of allowing the Department of Children, Youth and Families to take federal benefits, like Social Security or veterans’ benefits, that belong to kids in state care to fund its administrative costs and feed the department’s bottom line. I will vigorously push for enactment of the bill (2025-H 5077) I sponsored to change that policy.
I will also fight for another bill I introduced (2025-H 5345) to extend the voluntary extension of care program — which helps young adults in DCYF care successfully begin their adult lives — to all children in state care.
To provide justice for children who have suffered abuse — and will continue to suffer throughout their lives because of it — I will reintroduce my legislation (2025-H 5177) to extend the statute of limitations for civil suits for injuries resulting from child abuse. Similarly, I will support my colleague Rep. Carol McEntee’s “Annie’s Bill” (2025-H 5909A), which would have closed a loophole to ensure that victims of child sexual abuse can sue their abusers and those who protected those abusers. That bill passed the House this year, and I feel strongly that it should be enacted next year.
Among the many competing needs of our state, I believe children must always be a high priority. I will never stop fighting to ensure that they are.
Rep. Julie A. Casimiro, a Democrat, represents District 31 in North Kingstown and Exeter. She is the chairwoman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Children and Families.