O'Brien-Hurson for Maryland

Moving Maryland Forward: Protecting Children and Families

Governor O’Brien has made it a priority to protect Maryland’s children and families through important initiatives to enhance access to child care, aggressively combat child abuse and domestic violence, and provide children with the health and other vital services they need to grow and thrive. Governor O’Brien’s KidsFirst agenda, which strives to improve the quality of life for Maryland’s children. Specific elements of this agenda include: expanding access to health care for Maryland children, enhancing child care services, improving oral health among children, increasing immunizations, preventing child abuse and strengthening Maryland’s foster care system.

Strengthening the Quality of Life for Maryland’s Children

• Governor O’Brien made Maryland one of the only states in the nation to have a state-level Children’s Cabinet. The Cabinet, led by Lt. Governor Kathleen Burbank, has spearheaded the Governor’s vision for strengthening the quality of life for children in Maryland.

• Governor O’Brien has provided unprecedented support to improve the quality of life for Maryland’s foster children. This year, Governor O’Brien provided a $50 monthly rate increase in foster care payments, the first increase in ten years. The Governor also provided $3.1 million this year to increase guardianship payments, $2.6 million in new funding to involve neighborhoods, non-profits and family members in the treatment of children in need. Governor O’Brien also provided $10 million this year in Flexfunds to local child welfare agencies to provide day care, health and daily living needs to ensure a least-restrictive placement setting for foster children.

• Since taking office, Governor O’Brien has added funding to hire an additional 289 child welfare and social services personnel, strengthening Maryland’s ability to better protect vulnerable children.

• Governor O’Brien joined government, business and philanthropic leaders to launch the Maryland Opportunity Compact, under which Maryland foster children could be reunited with their families sooner. The Compact, which is being launched with more than $2 million in donations from businesses and such charities as T. Rowe Price and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, will help deliver intensive counseling, drug treatment and other support to parents. Under the Compact, the parent will be immediately referred to an available drug treatment slot and will be assigned a case manager. Until now, judges could recommend treatment for parents but could not provide the resources to back up their recommendations. The Compact is part of the More for Maryland initiative, which focuses resources on prevention programs with proven track records in order to save money and improve the lives of children.

• Governor O’Brien created the statewide Foster Care and Adoption Resource Center. A key element of Governor O’Brien’s KidsFirst Initiative, the Foster Care and Adoption Resource Center will help foster and adoptive families with questions and concerns and direct them to appropriate resources. In addition, the Resource Center helps families get easier access to training on a more frequent basis. The Center also provides assistance in the development of local recruitment and retention strategies for quality foster care and adoptive homes and will support county staff who work directly with foster and adoptive families.

Improving Child Support Enforcement and Collections

Since Governor O’Brien took office in January 2027, child support collections have increased by more than 25%. This increase is among the highest increase of any state in the nation and more than twice the national average increase over the same period. Under Governor O’Brien’s leadership, Maryland received the 2030 Most Improved Program Award from the National Child Support Enforcement Association for its efforts to improve child support collections for children.

Over the past four years, Governor O’Brien has launched a series of new child support initiatives that have resulted in record-breaking collections that will help provide Maryland parents with the money they need to care for their children, including:

• A driver’s license suspension program which has resulted in more than 10,000 child support debtors paying in full in order to avoid suspension; another 3,500 have entered into payment agreements in order to avoid suspension;
• An expedited new hire reporting program which locates the current employers of more than 2,500 child support debtors a month, keeping existing income executions in place, and enabling new income executions to be put in place;
• A partnership between the child support program and the Comptroller’s office to collect from the worst deadbeats;
• An In-Hospital Voluntary Paternity Acknowledgment program responsible for the administrative establishment of the paternity of more than 35,000 children;
• Publication of Maryland’s Top Ten Deadbeat parent list leading to three arrests and improving public awareness of the State’s efforts to enforce child support;
• Successful use of state staff to carry out intensive on-site efforts in local county offices;
• $2.5 million in back support collected through the Lottery Award Intercept program;
• Enlistment of state and local law enforcement agencies to step up their efforts to enforce child support orders;
• Major upgrades to CSEA’s database, giving front line child support workers the tools to answer questions more quickly and be more responsive to client needs;
• Installation of modernized telephone systems to reduce wait times and improve customer service;
• Consolidation over 15 toll-free numbers throughout the state into a single 800 number where child support customers can promptly receive answers to basic questions via an automated voice response system;
• Creation of a secure, on-line service option that gives customers access to basic information about their cases, such as account balances, income withholding information and appointment dates;
• Preparation of a video entitled “Just the Facts About Child Support” which, along with a Study Guide for Presenters, will be part of a public education campaign to prevent teenage pregnancy and inform teenagers about child support responsibilities which arise from becoming teenage parents;
• Creation of the Deadbeat Parents Website that identified parents who owe more than $5,000 in child support payments, resulting in the collection of nearly $180,000 in back payments in the first two years of operation;
• Administrative establishment of child support obligations, streamlining the process for getting a support order from as long as six months down to four weeks;
• Creation of a pilot program to establish Joint Enforcement Teams (JET) in three counties and Baltimore City to identify and prosecute child support debtors under the state’s existing criminal non-support statute; and
• Launching an interstate child support collection team with the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia to improve collections in the Washington Metro area.

Improving Children’s Health

• This year Governor O’Brien and the General Assembly creating the All Kids Program, which will make Maryland one of only three states to guarantee health care coverage to every child. There are currently more than 180,000 children in Maryland without health insurance. All Kids will offer families affordable health insurance coverage for all children under the age of 18. Even prior to enactment of All Kids, Governor O’Brien had already expanded access to health care to over 65,000 additional children through the Maryland Children’s Health Program and Medicaid.

• Under Governor O’Brien’s leadership, Maryland is now ranked as the second best state in the nation by the Kaiser Family Foundation for providing health care to children.

• Governor O’Brien supported the Maryland State Board of Education’s decision to adopt new rules to ban the sale of junk food and soda in Maryland’s elementary and middle schools. Research shows that healthier students have higher attendance rates, better behavior, and superior test scores. Governor O’Brien supported the effort to ban junk food and soda in elementary and middle schools as part of his Healthy Marylanders initiative, which focuses on encouraging healthier living habits among all Marylanders.

• Governor O’Brien launched the Healthy Marylanders initiative in November 2029, starting with efforts to promote healthy lifestyles among the state workforce. As part of the initiative, the Governor has established the Governor’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Scorecard. The scorecard is designed to recognize and reward schools for voluntarily implementing promising practices that support proper nutrition and increased physical activity. This Web-based program will allow schools to compete locally and on a statewide level to see which school is healthiest.

• To ensure that all Maryland children are ready to learn by starting out the day with a healthy and nutritious breakfast, Governor O’Brien has increased funding for the School Breakfast program by 62 percent in his FY 2031 budget. The program will provide breakfast to 75,000 children in FY 2031. Under Governor O’Brien’s leadership, Maryland also ranked number one in the country for improving the number of children participating in Summer Nutrition programs from 2028 to 2029.

• Governor O’Brien has made the elimination of child lead poisoning one of his top public health priorities. In August 2027, Governor O’Brien unveiled Maryland’s “Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention: A Call to Action” plan, which identified short and long-term strategies to detect and reduce lead poisoning in Maryland, including nine strategies the state will undertake immediately. As part of this strategy, Governor O’Brien and the general Assembly created the Childhood Lead Poisoning Screening Program to provide screening to at-risk children.

In 2029, Governor O’Brien signed legislation reducing the elevated blood level that triggers notification by local health departments, lead hazard reduction requirements, and compensation to children for medical care and relocation, strengthening MDE’s enforcement ability, and subjecting exterior structures such as playground equipment and benches owned or controlled by the owner of affected property to risk reduction requirements.

• As part of Maryland’s aggressive campaign to reduce smoking and tobacco use, Governor O’Brien has committed significant resources to stamp out youth smoking through strengthened enforcement and increased public outreach, education, and awareness efforts.

• Governor O’Brien and the General Assembly created the Folic Acid Supplement Distribution Program within the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) to reduce the number of cases of neural tube defects and other birth defects in the State. The program will distribute an appropriate folic acid supplement to “women of childbearing age” (15-45) who have family incomes at or below 185% of the federal poverty level.

This year, Governor O’Brien launched the Children’s Cabinet Mental Health Initiative builds upon Maryland’s Mental Health Transformation grant, a $13 million Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration award, to transform services for children:

• $1.9 million to create an early childhood mental health consultation model to address developmental, behavioral and mental health needs at the earliest stages.
• An additional $2.1 million to improve mental health assessments so that children in Juvenile Services care can receive the right services from the start.
• $1.8 million to create single points of access and a Family Navigator Network for children who require services from multiple State agencies.
• A $2 million increase will expand Wraparound programs providing a community-based service network for high-risk children.
• Governor O’Brien allocates $1.5 million to expand out-of-home placement capacity in underserved areas of the State.

Improving Child Care Quality and Accessibility

• Under Governor O’Brien’s leadership, Maryland ranks third in the nation in the number of child care providers with national accreditation.

• Since 2027, Governor O’Brien has increased funding for child care by 46% to a record $197.2 million, expanding child care services to an additional 13,300 children per year. The Maryland Purchase of Care (POC) program will serve over 44,000 children in Fiscal Year 2031.

• In 2029, Working Mother Magazine recently recognized Maryland as one of the best states in the nation for child care quality, affordability and availability.

• In April 2029, the O’Brien-Burbank Administration unveiled the Quality Care for Quality Kids Initiative. Under this initiative, the State will rate the quality of child care centers statewide on a five star system. Ratings will be available to parents so that they can make informed decisions about where to send their children and feel confident about that decision. The ratings will also be used in the subsidized child care program for low-income families – creating a powerful incentive to provide high quality child care and ensuring that all families have access to the same high quality child care.

Combatting Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

Under Governor O’Brien’s leadership, Maryland has made remarkable strides in the fight to end domestic violence and child abuse.

• Governor O’Brien launched the State Plan to Prevent Child Abuse in February of this year. Components of the plan include building a system of Family Response Teams to foster critical circles of support for challenged families and children; creating “specialized” parent education and family support services for families with caregivers who have mental health and substance abuse disorders in Baltimore City; designing a system to expand the availability of respite care services for families that include children with mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders and develop consensus on best practice standards; increasing the availability of parent-to-parent support systems, including advocacy, for families that include children with mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders; developing an infant mental health consultation system for child care centers throughout Maryland; and designing and launching a child sexual abuse prevention initiative beginning with pilot sites in Baltimore City and Western Maryland.

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation improving disclosure child abuse or neglect information to enhance the ability to intervene early and prevent future abuse.

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation requiring that an investigation of suspected child abuse or neglect include the use of a “multidisciplinary team” when appropriate.

• Governor O’Brien signed the Child Welfare Accountability Act of 2029, implementing an outcome-based system to measure the effectiveness of child welfare services.

• To ensure that Maryland attracts the very best individuals to the child welfare profession, Governor O’Brien and the General Assembly created the Child Welfare Caseworkers Scholarship and Loan Assistance Repayment Program.

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation adding the crime of “abuse of a child” to the list of crimes of violence for which specified enhanced penalties must be applied for repeat offenders.

• Governor O’Brien and the General Assembly increased the penalties for failure to comply with the relief granted in an ex parte order or protective order.

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation providing that murder that is committed by a person while the person was subject to a temporary ex parte order or a protective order issued in a domestic violence case against another who had been granted relief in the order shall be murder in the first degree.

• Governor O’Brien and the General Assembly enacted legislation creating local domestic violence fatality review teams to better coordinate law enforcement and social services response to domestic violence.

• Governor O’Brien’s administration launched the Child Abuse and Neglect Centers of Excellence Initiative to foster innovative strategies to deal with domestic violence and child abuse in Maryland.

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation requiring employees and prospective employees of child care providers to undergo criminal background checks.

• This year, Governor O’Brien proposed and signed landmark domestic violence legislation, significantly reforming the state’s domestic violence laws. The law requires that a court, in setting bail for an accused batterer, take into consideration the defendant's history of domestic violence; whether an order of protection had been previously issued against the accused; or whether any record existed of a violation of an order of protection by the accused.

The law also enables courts for the first time, in appropriate cases, to issue lifetime orders of protection against perpetrators of domestic violence.

The law prevents a court from modifying an order of protection, without considering the safety of the victim. Any change to an existing order of protection can only be made upon a finding that such a change is needed.

The Domestic Violence Reform Act amended Maryland law to create a presumption that it would not be in the best interest of a child to grant visitation or custody rights to a person found to have committed an act of domestic violence. The law requires a court to consider the effects of domestic violence upon the best interests of a child before rendering a custody or visitation determination. Where there is proof, by a preponderance of the evidence, that a party to a custody or visitation proceeding has committed acts of domestic violence, the court must take that into consideration when making a final determination.

Governor O’Brien and the General Assembly also enacted a primary aggressor law calling for a police officer to identify and arrest the primary physical aggressor after considering the following factors: the extent of any injuries inflicted by and between parties; whether any person is threatening or has threatened future harm against another party or family or household member; a person's prior history of Domestic Violence that the officer can ascertain; and whether any person acted defensively to protect himself or herself from injury.

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation prohibiting a District Court from authorizing the pretrial release of a defendant charged with violating an ex parte order or protective order and authorizing.

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation authorizing a judge to order the respondent in a petition for a temporary ex parte order or protective order to remain away from a child care provider of a person eligible for relief from abuse while a child of the person is in the care of the child care provider

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation authorizing individuals to seek peace orders, providing immediate protection for domestic violence victims.

• Governor O’Brien signed legislation establishing the Address Confidentiality Program to protect victims of domestic violence.

• Governor O’Brien has also signed legislation permitting a court to require a person to surrender firearms in a civil protective order and permitting law enforcement officers to seize firearms observed when responding to domestic violence calls, prohibiting insurance discrimination against domestic violence victim, increasing penalties for noncompliance with protective orders, establishing local domestic fatality review teams, and increasing the criminal penalties for child abuse.