BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
BILL NO: SB 1279
S
AUTHOR: Wolk
B
VERSION: April 9, 2012
HEARING DATE: April 10, 2012
1
FISCAL: Yes
2
7
CONSULTANT: Sara Rogers
9
SUBJECT
Child welfare services: Inter-agency data sharing and
outcomes monitoring
SUMMARY
Establishes legislative intent to authorize the State
Department of Social Services (DSS) to obtain access to
information held by other state agencies. Requires the
department to identify key outcomes for children in the
child welfare system, as specified. Requires the
department to consult with state and local agencies and
other stakeholders in determining outcomes measurements.
Requires the department to report information to the
legislature regarding their progress in identifying and
monitoring outcomes. Sunsets departmental reporting
requirements on January 1, 2019.
ABSTRACT
Current law
1.Establishes CDSS as the "single state agency" required by
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Title IVB and IVE of the federal Social Security Act to
distribute federal funds and supervise Californias county
administered child welfare system which includes child
protective services, foster care placement services, and
adoptions services.
2.Authorizes the development and implementation of the
Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMW)
to automate the case management, services planning, and
information gathering functions of child welfare
services. CWS/CMS is California's version of the federal
Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System
(SACWIS).
3.Establishes the Office of Systems Integration within the
California Health and Human Services Agency and
identifies OSI as the entity responsible for managing
various health and human services data systems including
the CWS/CMS.
4.Suspends the Child Welfare Services Web (CWS/Web) project
and requires CDSS in partnership with OSI, legislative
staff and counties to develop the Child Welfare Services
Automation Study to assess the best approach or
approaches to updating and improving functionality for
the CWS automated system.
5.Requires CDSS to establish the California Child and
Family Service Review System in order to review all
county child welfare systems, and to convene an
inter-agency and stakeholder workgroup to establish a
work plan by which child and family service reviews shall
be conducted.
6.Asserts legislative intent to establish accurate
information related to child fatality cases through the
sharing of data between the California State Child Death
Review Council, the Department of Justice, the State
Department of Social Services, the State Department of
Health Services, and state and local child death review
teams.
7.Establishes legislative intent for the State Department
of Social Services to enhance the Child Welfare Services
Case Management System to include information concerning
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the level of care required, educational accomplishments,
and health history of children placed in foster care.
8.Under the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA) prohibits personally identifiable data sharing
between state agencies.
9.Realigns funding for Adoption Services, Foster Care, and
Child Welfare Services (CWS), among other programs from
the state to counties and redirected specified tax
revenues as a dedicated funding source.
10.Requires the director of the Employment Development
Department (EDD) to permit the use of unemployment
insurance tax and benefit information by certain
governmental entities specified in law, and allows EDD to
require reimbursement for all direct costs incurred in
providing this information.
This bill
1.Establishes legislative intent to authorize the
Department of Social Services to receive information held
by other state agencies as it relates to outcomes for
children and youth involved in the child welfare system.
2.Requires the director of the Employment Development
Department to permit the Department of Social Services to
receive quarterly wage data to fulfill the department's
duties to the extent permitted by federal law.
3.Requires the department to identify key outcomes for
children in the child welfare system, including but not
limited to, outcomes associated with K-12 education,
higher education, criminal justice involvement,
employment, suicide and racial, ethnic, and other
disparities. Requires the department to consult with
various stakeholders in determining these outcome
measures.
4.Requires indicators to reflect outcomes at the time the
child emancipates from the child welfare system, as well
as after the child has emancipated from the system,
including at least one point in time at least five years
following separation.
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5.Requires the department to provide information to the
budget and appropriate policy committees of both houses
of the legislature regarding their progress in
identifying outcomes measures as specified, their
progress in monitoring those outcomes, as specified, and
their findings and recommendations for implementing this
section.
FISCAL IMPACT
This bill has not been analyzed by a fiscal committee.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
California Child Welfare System
The California Department of Social Services supervises a
58 county-administered Child Welfare Services system which
investigates approximately 31,500 reports of severe injury,
death and life threatening neglect of children annually.
According to the Department of Social Services 58,000
children are currently in foster care placement, with
nearly one in three residing in Los Angeles County.
Statewide, this reflects a substantial reduction over the
last decade when an estimated 100,000 children were in
foster care placement. According to the Department of
Social Services, the decline was achieved through increased
focus on adoption and relative guardianship and more
recently through efforts preventing children from entering
foster care in the first place.<1>
Currently, federal law pursuant to title IV-B of the Social
Security Act and state law pursuant to AB 636 (Steinberg,
Chapter 678, Statutes of 2001) require CDSS to enact the
Children and Family Services Review System which
establishes an outcomes-based review process administered
by the Outcomes and Accountability Bureau. The bureau
relies on peer quality case reviews, county
self-assessments and system improvement plans to assess,
-------------------------
<1>
http://www.childsworld.ca.gov/res/TitleIV-B/APSR2011.pdf
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monitor, and track the performance of county child welfare
systems.
Purpose of the bill
According to the author, the state monitors the number of
children who are receiving child welfare services and the
nature of those services, but has limited information on
how children fare in adulthood, after leaving the system.
The author states that this lack of information on
long-term outcomes prevents the state from evaluating and
improving the child welfare system and that the goal of
this bill is to enable the state to monitor the quality of
service, reduce costs, and improve outcomes for youth
involved in the child welfare system.
The author states that this bill builds upon, and is
largely modeled after AB 636 and authorizes DSS to expand
the existing Children and Family Services Review System to
include information on the extent that youth involved in
the Child Welfare System are equipped to succeed later in
life.
Specifically, the authors states that the absence of
statutory authority for DSS to exchange data with various
state agencies prevents the department from utilizing
available data pertaining to K-12 education, higher
education, employment, criminal justice involvement,
suicide and other outcomes the Department of Social
Services deems appropriate.
The author points out that the Child Welfare Council, an
advisory body created by the legislature and co-chaired by
the California Health and Human Services Agency and the
State Supreme Court, issued a statement on data sharing on
December 17, 2009 stating:
"ÝT]he Council recommends moving forward
aggressively to document, develop new, and expand
existing information gathering and sharing
capabilities to permit each entity to participate more
fully and uniformly in information sharing efforts and
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to draw upon existing relationships and agreements
whenever possible to lend leadership and assistance to
implementation. The Council encourages the leadership
of all child and family serving systems to advance the
ability to share data across those systems.
Additionally, as evidence of the need for greater data
exchange, the author points to private efforts to link
data archives between educational and child welfare
agencies. Specifically, the Stuart Foundation has
funded a pilot research project conducted by the
Center for Social Sciences Research at the University
of California, Berkeley and the California Partnership
for Achieving Student Success (Cal-PASS) which links
Cal-PASS archive data with the California Department
of Education Annual Performance Index (API) and Child
Welfare Services/ Case Management System (CWS/CMS)."
Additionally, as evidence of the need for this bill, the
author points to the recent settlement agreement for the
Katie A., et al. v. Diana Bonta, et.al, lawsuit regarding
children in, or at risk of placement into, foster care.
Within the settlement agreement, DSS and DMH agreed to seek
to improve methods and adequacy of data collection,
matching, and sharing to support the delivery of services
at the state, county and provider levels. The settlement
agreement included specific recommendations regarding the
development of intended outcomes measures, the development
of clear policies on data sharing between governmental
agencies and service partners, and required DHCS, DSS and
DMH to establish a Data and Quality Task Force.
Related/prior legislation
AB 118 (Chapter 15, Statutes of 2011) - Implements as part
of the 2011-12 Budget Act the 2011 Public Safety
Realignment, transferring various state fiscal
responsibilities for public safety, child welfare services
and adoption services to counties. This bill also creates
the account structure and allocations for some of the
funding, and dedicates specified tax revenue to fund these
local costs in 2011-12.
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AB 12 (Beall, Chapter 559, Statutes of 2010) - Enacts, as
an option under federal law, extended foster care for
foster youth up to age 19 in 2012; to age 20 in 2013; and,
if funding is appropriated by the Legislature, to age 21 in
2014. Creates a new group of "non-minor dependent" foster
youth who are 18 years and older and have a legal status as
adults. Establishes two new service settings called the
Supervised Independent Living Placement (SILP) and
Transitional Housing Program-Plus-Foster Care (THP-Plus-FC)
in addition to regular foster care settings (group home,
foster family agency, or foster family home).
AB 490 (Steinberg, Chapter 862, Statutes of 2004) - Among
other significant changes, authorizes school districts to
release information from pupil records for specified
purposes including to organizations conducting studies for,
or on behalf of, educational agencies or institutions for
the purpose of developing, validating, or administering
predictive tests, administering student aid programs, and
improving instruction, if the studies are conducted in a
manner that will not permit the personal identification of
pupils or their parents by persons other than
representatives of the organizations and the information
will be destroyed when no longer needed for the purpose for
which it is obtained.
AB 636 (Steinberg, Chapter 678, Statutes of 2001) -
Requires CDSS to enact the Children and Family Services
Review System which establishes an outcomes-based review
process administered by the Outcomes and Accountability
Bureau.
SB 370 (Presley, Chapter 1294, Statutes of 1989) - Requires
CDSS to implement a single statewide Child Welfare Services
Case Management System.
POSITIONS
Support: Aspiranet
California Youth Connection
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Oppose: None received
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