BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2322|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2322
Author: Feuer (D), et al
Amended: 8/5/10 in Senate
Vote: 27 - Urgency
SENATE HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE : 5-0, 6/30/10
AYES: Liu, Emmerson, Romero, Runner, Yee
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 8-0, 8/9/10
AYES: Kehoe, Alquist, Ashburn, Emmerson, Leno, Price,
Wolk, Yee
NO VOTE RECORDED: Corbett, Walters, Wyland
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 77-0, 6/1/10 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Abuse of children, elder, or dependent persons:
confidentiality
SOURCE : County Welfare Directors Association
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
Service Employees International Union
DIGEST : This bill makes various changes to statutes
governing discretionary multidisciplinary personnel teams.
ANALYSIS :
Existing Law
CONTINUED
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1. Defines "child abuse" as a situation in which a child
suffers from:
A. Serious physical injury inflicted by other than
accidental means.
B. Harm caused by intentional neglect or
malnutrition or sexual abuse.
C. The absence of basic physical care.
D. Willful mental injury or negligent treatment or
maltreatment.
E. Any condition which results in the violation of
rights or welfare or jeopardizes present or future
health, normal development, or capacity for
independence.
2. Defines a child abuse multidisciplinary personnel team
(MDT) as any team of three or more people trained in the
prevention, identification, and treatment of child abuse
and neglect cases and who are qualified to provide a
broad range of child abuse-related services such as
mental health professionals, law enforcement personnel,
social workers, and teachers.
3. Permits members of an MDT, as defined in Section 18951,
to exchange confidential information and writings during
team meetings, provided the information is relevant to
the prevention, identification or treatment of child
abuse and is kept confidential.
4. Permits members of an MDT to exchange confidential
information that includes information about voluntary
and involuntary mental health services if the
information and records are relevant to the prevention,
identification, management, or treatment of an abused
child and that child's parents.
5. Allows psychotherapists to release information to law
enforcement agencies if a patient presents a serious
danger of violence to a reasonably foreseeable victim or
victims.
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6. Authorizes each county to establish a computerized data
base to allow provider agencies to share identifying
information related to families at risk for child abuse
or neglect for the purpose of forming of MDTs for the
prevention, identification, management or treatment of
child abuse.
7. Specifies the identifying information in the data base
as:
A. The name, address, telephone number, and date
and place of birth of family members.
B. The number assigned to the case by each provider
agency.
C. The name and telephone number of each employee
assigned to the case from each provider agency.
D. The date or dates of contact between each
provider agency and a family member.
8. Requires that the information in the system be entered
by and disclosed to designated employees, and the heads
of provider agencies shall establish a system by which
unauthorized personnel cannot access the data contained
in the system.
9. Defines "provider agencies" for the purposes of the
computerized data base as any governmental or other
agency which has as one of its purposes the prevention,
identification, management or treatment of child abuse
or neglect -- agencies including but not limited those
providing social services, children's services, health
services, mental health services, probation, law
enforcement, or education.
10.Requires each county to develop its own standards for
defining "at risk" establishing a computerized database
system for sharing information among MDT members.
11.Establishes the California Work Opportunities and
Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program to provide
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welfare to work services and benefit payments to
qualifying households with children.
This bill:
1. Provides that the activities of MDTs engaged in the
prevention, identification, management, or treatment of
child abuse, elder or dependent person abuse, are
activities performed in the administration of public
social services.
2. Includes in the definition of MDTs CalWORKs case
managers, and social workers with experience or training
in child abuse or neglect prevention, identification,
management, or treatment.
3. Includes information relevant to the provision of child
welfare services, as defined, as information that may be
disclosed and exchanged by an MDT.
4. Requires specified optional computer databases that are
authorized in statute, if they are developed by
individual counties at their discretion, to include
information about persons living in a child's home and a
contact person instead of the employee assigned to the
case from a provider agency, as specified.
5. Specifically authorizes the County of Los Angeles, to
include information in its database about convictions of
family members or persons living in the child's home for
crimes that involved a child as a victim, as specified.
6. Permits the otherwise confidential information contained
in the databases to be used for the provision of child
welfare services, as specified.
7. Recasts various related confidentiality provisions, to
provide that the above information, if relevant to the
provision of child welfare services, as defined, or the
investigation, prevention, identification, or treatment
of child abuse or neglect, may be disclosed to
multidisciplinary personnel teams; as specified.
Background
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For about 20 years, California law has authorized MDTs to
allow a coordinated interagency response to child abuse
cases. MDTs, formed and operated at the county level, can
share confidential information among team members for the
purposes of preventing, identifying, or treating child
abuse. Currently, all 58 California counties operate child
abuse MDTs.
In approximately 30 California counties, case managers in
the CalWORKs program join colleagues providing child
welfare services for the purpose of case planning and
coordination. These coordinated efforts are called the
"linkages project."
Under existing law, counties may establish computerized
databases so that provider agencies can share identifying
information regarding families receiving child welfare
services and children at risk of abuse or neglect. A
county's database is available to members of these
multidisciplinary personnel teams that are charged with
preventing, identifying, managing, and treating child
abuse.
At this time, Los Angeles County is the only California
county operating a computerized database for its MDTs.
Called the family child index, it is a "pointer" system,
telling authorized users if another participating agency
has had contacts with a family. For example, a social
worker investigating an abuse case after providing
emergency response should be able to discover if the
district attorney's office, the sheriff's department, or
another county agency such as social services and health
services, has had contact with the child or a member of the
child's family. The database includes the name and phone
number of a person in each of those departments whom the
social worker can contact for more information. Those
contact persons constitute the team that can share
information.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee analysis:
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12
2012-13 Fund
Expands allowable Likely
minor, non-reimbursable costs* Local
MDT activities
Requirements for
Potentially significant, non-reimbursable
Local
optional local costs*
databases
New authority for
Potentially significant, non reimbursable
Local
LA County costs
*To the extent that counties choose to participate/adopt.
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/10/10)
County Welfare Directors Association (co-source)
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (co-source)
Service Employees International Union (co-source)
County Sheriff's Department
State Public Affairs Committee of the Junior Leagues of Los
Angeles
OPPOSITION : (Verified 8/10/10)
American Civil Liberties Union
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : The County Welfare Directors
Association supports the bill in general and specifically
argues for allowing CalWORKs case managers to participate
on MDTs: such participation will improve cross-program
planning and coordination. The County of Los Angeles
supports the clarification of circumstances under which
information can be shared among multidisciplinary team
members. It also argues that timely access to information
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about unrelated persons living in a child's home and
conviction information about those persons and family
members will assist social workers prior to making home
visits.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : Because the bill adds
information about convictions to the database, the American
Civil Liberties Union recommends four changes: (1) require
notice to individuals in the database that information is
being held about him or her and the opportunity for
correction of inaccuracies in the information; (2) require
destruction of data after specified time periods - when it
is no longer useful to maintain personal and conviction
information in the database; (3) establish legal remedies
including injunctive relief for individuals if their
information is wrongfully accessed or deliberately misused;
(4) define "at risk for child abuse or neglect" and delete
the reference to "in need of child welfare services" in
order to provide a more narrow definition of who can be
included in a county database.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Anderson, Arambula, Bass, Beall,
Bill Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield, Bradford,
Brownley, Buchanan, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter,
Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon,
DeVore, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong,
Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick,
Gilmore, Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill,
Huber, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Lieu, Logue,
Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nava,
Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, Norby, V. Manuel Perez,
Portantino, Ruskin, Salas, Saldana, Silva, Skinner,
Smyth, Solorio, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico,
Tran, Villines, Yamada, John A. Perez
NO VOTE RECORDED: Tom Berryhill, Audra Strickland, Vacancy
CTW:do 8/10/10 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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