A Team 4 investigation will always get attention and often leads to action. Today, it goes a step further: a change in state law.

The following Team 4 report by investigator Jim Parsons aired Dec. 1, 2004, on Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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We checked criminal court records for hundreds of foster parents in Allegheny County. We found more than 80 who have criminal backgrounds and 10 whose felony convictions were so serious that state law says they shouldn't be allowed to have foster children.

Yesterday, Gov. Ed Rendell signed a new law that will help identify foster parents with troubled backgrounds faster.

Fatimah Jones and Cheralynn Sabatasso are just two of the foster parents our investigation found with felony convictions -- both for aggravated assault.

Sabatasso served a prison sentence in 1998 for "beating another woman about the head, knee and upper torso with a Club anti-theft device." Jones admitted to "stabbing a woman named Rhonda Manns," according to a police report.

State Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills: "I think we need to make certain that the children who are placed in these types of homes, we have an obligation to make sure that we provide them with a safe environment."

Team 4 took its original findings to Costa. He was already working on a bill to strengthen criminal background check requirements for foster parents. When he saw what our investigation found, he made changes to the bill.

Costa: "You brought a couple of points to our attention. We turned around and contacted DPW -- the Department of Public Welfare -- and also had amendments drafted that they were very receptive to."

Costa's amendments to the new law include a requirement that foster parents notify the Department of Children, Youth and Families within 48 hours of any new criminal charges against them.

Also, local CYF agencies are now required to run criminal checks every two years on existing foster parents. The old law required a check only once.

And the new law requires background checks not just on the foster parent, but every adult who lives in the home.

Jennifer Debell, DPW: "The more information we have, the better off we'll be in making a decision about a family as to whether or not they can do a good job as a foster or adoptive parent."

Costa: "They're required to report that information now, where they weren't before, and that's a significant step because things do happen over a period of time and you must go through that background check every 24 months as well."

Rendell signed the bill into law yesterday.

There is another provision to the new law that will make it impossible for us to do a story like this in the future. The law says that from now on, the identities of all foster parents shall be kept secret, so from now on we'll have to take the word of state and county workers that they are not putting foster kids in the homes of felons, because we'll have no way to check.