---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 13 AND 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE VOLUNTARY ADMISSION PROCEDURE."
description: "When a youth who is experiencing foster care and living in an out-of-home placement has a need for inpatient psychiatric treatment, there can be a delay in gaining voluntary admission to a facility due to the Division of Family Services needing to obtain the youth’s parent or legal guardian’s consent for treatment. This can lead to a youth waiting in an emergency department bed or other inappropriate setting while waiting for the proper consent to be signed. In some cases, when a youth’s parent or legal guardian cannot be located, the youth must be involuntarily committed in order to obtain inpatient treatment, even when the youth is going willingly."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "151"
identifier: "SB 255"
citation: "Delaware SB 255 (151)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Marie Pinkney", "Melissa Minor-Brown"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 7
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2022-03-31"
last_action: "2022-09-21"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/c3469f3c-ebf1-417a-b00d-333684cae8f5"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=89288"
source_hash: "2039ae7898892c41cc577e1900736a59cf4e0eeb779ab8b058be5224bc31555e"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware SB 255 (151) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLES 13 AND 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE VOLUNTARY ADMISSION PROCEDURE.

When a youth who is experiencing foster care and living in an out-of-home placement has a need for inpatient psychiatric treatment, there can be a delay in gaining voluntary admission to a facility due to the Division of Family Services needing to obtain the youth’s parent or legal guardian’s consent for treatment. This can lead to a youth waiting in an emergency department bed or other inappropriate setting while waiting for the proper consent to be signed. In some cases, when a youth’s parent or legal guardian cannot be located, the youth must be involuntarily committed in order to obtain inpatient treatment, even when the youth is going willingly.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=89288&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=SB255)

## Votes

- 3/5 — **41–0** (pass) · lower
- 2/3 — **21–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Marie Pinkney — primary (person)
- Melissa Minor-Brown — primary (person)
- Bryan Townsend — cosponsor (person)
- David P. Sokola — cosponsor (person)
- Debra Heffernan — cosponsor (person)
- Eric Morrison — cosponsor (person)
- Krista Griffith — cosponsor (person)
- Kyle Evans Gay — cosponsor (person)
- Nicole Poore — cosponsor (person)
- Paul S. Baumbach — cosponsor (person)
- Ruth Briggs King — cosponsor (person)
- Sarah McBride — cosponsor (person)
- Stephanie L. Hansen — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2022-03-31** Introduced and Assigned to Health & Social Services Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2022-04-13** Reported Out of Committee (Health & Social Services) in Senate with 3 Favorable, 2 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2022-04-14** Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES `passage`
- **2022-04-28** Assigned to Health & Human Development Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2022-05-11** Reported Out of Committee (Health & Human Development) in House with 2 Favorable, 6 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2022-06-28** Passed By House. Votes: 41 YES `passage`
- **2022-09-21** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/c3469f3c-ebf1-417a-b00d-333684cae8f5`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).