---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO VOLUNTARY ADMISSIONS."
description: "This Act adds that the Director or Deputy Director of the Division of Family Services may have a designee consent to voluntary admission and sign for admission to a psychiatric hospital for youth in DFS custody. This reflects best practices and matches the current process for surgical consents for youth in DFS custody, and under DFS policy, a designee may only act as a designee to take such action with the direct approval of the Director or Deputy Director."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "153"
identifier: "SB 152"
citation: "Delaware SB 152 (153)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Dave G. Lawson", "Eric Morrison", "Franklin D. Cooke", "Marie Pinkney", "Melanie Ross Levin", "Russell Huxtable", "Sarah McBride", "Spiros Mantzavinos"]
version_count: 0
action_count: 7
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2025-05-15"
last_action: "2025-07-21"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/a2d3ac6b-d84f-4f57-8a05-41e7489d6d8f"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=142322"
source_hash: "1fec42a80171de726aafb7d01e99a2013c750c8afb62b4c4ccf4055519a9d6f0"
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 152 (153) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO VOLUNTARY ADMISSIONS.

This Act adds that the Director or Deputy Director of the Division of Family Services may have a designee consent to voluntary admission and sign for admission to a psychiatric hospital for youth in DFS custody. This reflects best practices and matches the current process for surgical consents for youth in DFS custody, and under DFS policy, a designee may only act as a designee to take such action with the direct approval of the Director or Deputy Director.

## Version chain

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


## Votes

- 3/5 — **39–0** (pass) · lower
- 3/4 — **18–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Dave G. Lawson — primary (person)
- Eric Morrison — primary (person)
- Franklin D. Cooke — primary (person)
- Marie Pinkney — primary (person)
- Melanie Ross Levin — primary (person)
- Russell Huxtable — primary (person)
- Sarah McBride — primary (person)
- Spiros Mantzavinos — primary (person)

## Timeline

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

- **2025-05-15** Introduced and Assigned to Health & Social Services Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2025-06-11** Reported Out of Committee (Health & Social Services) in Senate with 4 Favorable, 3 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2025-06-12** Passed By Senate. Votes: 18 YES 1 NOT VOTING 2 ABSENT `passage`
- **2025-06-12** Assigned to Health & Human Development Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2025-06-18** Reported Out of Committee (Health & Human Development) in House with 1 Favorable, 10 On Its Merits `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2025-06-25** Passed By House. Votes: 39 YES 1 ABSENT 1 VACANT `passage`
- **2025-07-21** 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/a2d3ac6b-d84f-4f57-8a05-41e7489d6d8f`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).