(WAVE) – As of Thursday, a piece of legislation that many advocates say is long overdue has passed both the Kentucky House and Senate, and will head to the governor’s desk.
That bill would both criminalize and better define grooming when it comes to minors.
For child and youth advocates all over Kentucky, the passage of this bill, House Bill 4, is a step in the right direction.
“If you look at the headlines, it’s story after story, and so clearly, we’re, whatever we’re doing is not working,” said Laura Wills-Coppelman, co-founder of Institutional Complicity Kentucky. “So, it’s time to take action.”
When it goes into effect, H.B. 4 will classify grooming of a minor as a criminal offense, and also better define what grooming means.
“I think it’s important for our role to share with legislators what we see on the ground level so that we can build those laws and have stronger laws to protect children and then also to criminalize the perpetrators that are trying to get access to our children,” said Sonja Grey, executive director of Exploited Children’s Help Organization.
H.B. 4 is one of the bills the ECHO has been advocating for this legislative session. Grey said making sure both children and adults can identify the signs of grooming is even more important with digital communication thrown into the mix.
“A lot of times, what we are seeing within the classroom…there is a lot of activity within these digital spaces,” said Grey. “This is not the time for us as adults to sit back and just think that this is going away because technology is always going to be advancing. We got to catch up to what is happening and making sure that our kids are safe.”
Another organization that has been advocating for H.B 4 is Institutional Complicity Kentucky, or ICKY.
The group formed as a response to former Shelby County Schools students coming forward with stories of sexual abuse and grooming from staff members within the district.
Some of those students, like Wills-Coppelman, are leading the charge, making trips to Frankfort in the past couple of months, meeting with lawmakers and speaking in committee meetings about legislation important to them.
“We can take what we’ve learned from these experiences that we have all gone through, and of course, things that we’ve learned since we’ve come forward from people who will never come forward publicly, but who have shared with us about their experiences,” said Wills-Coppelman. “The thing that was the most revealing to us is when we started to hear more survivor stories emerge, patterns start to become very clear, and that’s when it became clear to us that policy was the foundation and it is the pathway to address these issues.”
With H.B. 4 passing, Kentucky is one of 13 states to have this type of legislation.
Wills-Coppelman hopes the state can set an example and open people’s eyes to a very real issue happening everywhere.
“There’s a lot of reasons why this legislation is a priority bill this session,” said Wills-Coppelman. “I think we’re seeing these themes play out on a macro level nationally, and also on a micro level within our communities every single day.”
The state’s general assembly will wrap up the 2026 legislative session in mid-April.