BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 196
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 30, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Mark Stone, Chair
AB 196 (Mansoor) - As Amended: April 18, 2013
SUBJECT : Foster Parent Evaluations
SUMMARY : Requires the California Department of Social Services
(DSS) to develop and implement a foster parent evaluation
process. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires DSS, in consultation with the County Welfare
Directors Association (CWDA), foster parents, caregivers, and
current and former foster youth, to develop and implement a
foster parent evaluation process.
2)Specifies that the evaluation process shall allow a foster
youth over 10 years of age and nonminor dependents to provide
feedback on the quality of care they receive in licensed
foster care homes or group homes every six months, and upon
exit from those homes.
3)Requires the development of an evaluation tool that allows
foster youth to provide feedback on the caregiver's:
a) Participation in the implementation of the foster
youth's case plan;
b) Parenting skills and their ability to include the foster
youth as a full member of the family and respect his or her
culture, religion, and ethnicity, physical or psychological
needs, sexual orientation, gender identification or
expression, and family relationships;
c) Ability to honor the rights of foster youth, respect and
support their ties to his or her biological family, as
specified, and assist the youth in visitation and other
forms of communication;
d) Advocacy for the youth with the child welfare system and
community agencies, including schools, and health and
mental health providers;
e) Participation in the youth's medical, psychological, and
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dental care, including scheduling regular health and mental
health exams and coordinating transportation for the youth;
f) Encouragement and support of the youth's educational
goals and school success, as specified, and working with
the youth's educational representative or surrogate, if one
has been appointed;
g) Provision of developmentally appropriate opportunities
to allow the youth to learn and practice life skills and
have hands-on experiences in preparation for transition to
adulthood, as specified;
h) Provision of opportunities to develop the youth's
interests and skills, as specified; and
i) Efforts to ensure any transition from home respects the
youth's developmental stage and psychological needs and
allows for ongoing relationships.
4)Requires DSS to implement the foster parent evaluation process
and promulgate all necessary regulations no later than January
1, 2015.
EXISTING LAW
1)States the intent of the Legislature that persons desiring to
become, or to continue being, foster parents shall receive
training in order to assist them in being effective substitute
caregivers and to enhance the safety and growth of children
placed with them.
2)Further states the intent of the Legislature that there is a
need to provide basic curriculum, a program for continuing
education, and specialized training for parents caring for
children with unique needs.
3)Requires licensed foster parents to undergo a minimum of 12
hours of foster parent training before any foster youth is
placed in their home. The training is required to be
comprised of:
a) An overview of the child protective system;
b) The effects of child abuse and neglect on child
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development;
c) Positive discipline and the importance of self-esteem;
d) Health issues in foster care;
e) Accessing education and health services available to
foster children;
f) The right of a foster child to have fair and equal
access to all available services, placement, care,
treatment, and benefits, and to not be subjected to
discrimination or harassment on the basis of actual or
perceived race, ethnic group identification, ancestry,
national origin, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation,
gender identity, mental or physical disability, or HIV
status;
g) Instruction on cultural competency and sensitivity
relating to, and best practices for, providing adequate
care to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in
out-of-home care; and
h) Basic instruction on the existing laws and procedures
regarding the safety of foster youth at school and the
ensuring of a harassment and violence free school
environment contained in the California Student Safety and
Violence Prevention Act of 2000.
4)By regulation, requires group home administrators to have a
master's degree in behavioral sciences from an accredited
college or university, have served no less than one year as a
social worker, and undergo 40 hours of continuing education
for purposes of recertification, as specified.
5)Requires relative and nonrelative extended family members
(NREFMs) to comply with foster home licensing requirements.
6)Establishes the Foster Youth Bill of Rights, which enumerates
various rights of foster youth and includes, but is not
limited to, the right to live in a safe, healthy, and
comfortable home where he or she is treated with respect, to
receive medical, dental, vision, and mental health services,
and to have caregivers and child welfare personnel who have
received instruction on cultural competency and sensitivity
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relating to, and best practices for, providing adequate care
to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in
out-of-home care.
7)Requires foster youth placed in a group home to be visited at
least once per month by their social worker, which shall
include a private conversation between the youth and the
social worker to remain confidential unless otherwise
specified.
8)Establishes the Foster Care Ombudsman Program as an autonomous
program within the Department of Social Services (DSS) with
the purpose of responding to and helping to resolve issues
related to the placement and provision of care and services to
foster youth.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
Maintaining the Family
Historically, it has been the stated policy of California that
when a child is removed from the home, first preference should
be given to placing the child with another parent, or with his
or her relatives whenever possible and appropriate. This has
helped to preserve and strengthen the social bedrock of our
society, by keeping families together and reducing society's
reliance on its social welfare system.
Child Welfare Services
The purpose of California's Child Welfare Services (CWS) system
is to provide for the protection and the health and safety of
children. Within this purpose, the desired outcome is to
reunite children with their biological parents, when
appropriate, to help preserve and strengthen families. However,
if reunification with the biological family is not appropriate,
children are placed in the best environment possible, whether
that is with a relative, through adoption, or with a guardian,
such as a nonrelative extended family member, as specified.
In the case of children who are at risk of abuse, neglect or
abandonment, county juvenile courts hold legal jurisdiction and
children are served by the CWS system through the appointment of
a social worker. Through this system, there are multiple stages
where the custody of the child or his or her placement are
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evaluated, reviewed and determined by the judicial system, in
consultation with the child's social worker to help provide the
best possible services to the child.
At the time a child is identified as needing child welfare
services, and is in the temporary custody of a social worker,
the social worker is required to identify whether there is a
relative or guardian to whom the child may be released, unless
the social worker believes that the child would be at risk of
abuse, neglect or abandonment if placed with that relative or
guardian. (Welfare and Institutions Code Sections 306 and 309)
The Welfare and Institutions Code also lays out the conditions
under which a court may deem a child a dependent or ward of the
court, including when the parent has been incarcerated or
institutionalized and is unable to arrange for care for the
child, such as placement with a known relative or nonrelative
extended family member (NREFM). If the child is deemed a
dependent or ward of the court, the court may maintain the child
in his or her home, remove the child from the home but with the
goal of reunifying the child with his or her family, or identify
another form of permanent placement. Unless the child is unable
to be placed with the parent, the court is required to give
preference to a relative of the child in order to preserve the
child's association with his or her family. Associated with the
placement, the assigned social worker shall develop a case plan
for the child, which outlines the placement for the child, sets
forth services necessary for the child, and outlines the
provision of reunification services, if necessary and
appropriate.
Rights and protections for foster youth
Current law provides a variety of avenues foster youth to
address and respond to concerns or issues that arise while under
the care of the child welfare system. Complaints or issues can
be filed or reported to their social worker, the county welfare
agency responsible for their care and supervision, the juvenile
court, DSS' community care licensing division, or the Foster
Care Ombudsman to address any concerns they may have.
Additionally, the foster youth bill of rights provides specific
rights to foster youth. However, the existing infrastructure
provided to address concerns or complaints of foster youth does
not include a mechanism for foster youth to proactively provide
constructive feedback or input on the nature of services and
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care they are receiving.
Much of the structure of California's CWS system is currently
organized in a manner that responds to rather than anticipates
the needs of its children. The very context provided under a
system that receives complaints is one that waits for something
problematic to happen rather than to anticipate and avoid
problems. Although a response-based system helps to address
issues as they arise, it makes it difficult for the system as a
whole to act in a preventative manner so that children do not
have to experience problematic or otherwise negative situations
in the first place.
The state is currently working on developing a more
outcomes-based model for its child welfare system. Within this
spirit, this measure should be amended to align with this
outcomes-based philosophy to ensure that the evaluations
provided as a result of this bill can help to better inform that
process.
Need for the bill
Stating the need for this measure, the author writes that AB 196
is modeled after a component of Florida's Quality Parenting
Initiative (QPI) Project. Specifically, the author writes:
In 2008 the Florida Department of Children and Families, as
a collaborative effort with the Youth Law Center, launched
the Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI) project. QPI has
resulted in the development of innovative tools for foster
parents and children in foster care including an exit
interview for children and youth in foster care to provide
feedback on their caregivers.
Florida's process is broader than AB 196's approach,
however, QPI have reported measurable improvement in
outcomes such as, reduced unplanned placement changes,
reduced use of group care, reduced numbers of sibling
separation, and more successful improvements in
reunification. This bill would launch a similar process in
California.
AB 196 would establish an important tool in which foster
children would be allowed to contribute their valuable
input to improve the quality of foster care and to ensure a
child's well-being.
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In support of the measure as a co-sponsor, the California Youth
Connection (CYC) writes:
Recognizing that most foster parents open their loving
homes to children and youth in foster care with the best of
intentions, members of the CYC believe the system needs to
provide more oversight in order to identify problem
caregivers by creating a formal foster parent evaluation
system.
AB 196 would allow youth to provide feedback on issues such
as caregiver participation in their case plan, inclusion in
family activities, respect for the youth's culture,
beliefs, rights, and relationships, help maintaining ties
to the youth's biological family, participation in health
and mental health exams, support of the youth's educational
success and involvement in their school events, provision
of opportunities for the youth to learn skills to support
their transition to adulthood, support for participation in
extracurricular social activities, etc.
Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI)
Like the Florida QPI, but smaller in scope in terms of
implementation, California's QPI project began in 2009 as the
Caregiver Recruitment and Retention (R&R) Pilot. The goal of
the pilot was to change the dynamic and impressions of foster
care to enact recruitment and retention strategies in a small
number of counties. It has since expanded and been renamed the
QPI. A collaboration between DSS, the YLC and the County
Welfare Directors Association (CWDA), it remains a
county-by-county pilot, which is now operating in 18 counties
throughout the state.
The QPI project has helped to redefine what foster parenting
entails, translating it into an expectation of what it means to
be a foster parent and the expectations of the CWS system, and
helping counties align their practice and policies with these
expectations. This has involved assessments focused on the
array of services provided to a foster youth, their experience,
and the needed support for a foster parent, both for maintaining
an improved level of service for the child and to enhance the
outcomes for the child.
Nexus between the QPI and the foster parent evaluation
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The QPI project has been successful in effecting system-wide
administrative, cultural and at-times policy changes that have
helped to reduce reliance on the CWS system, have reduced
placement in group care environments, and have increased
successful reunification of children with their families. Woven
within the implementation of this project, the QPI involves both
foster parents and foster youth, in addition to a number of
other essential stakeholders. Overtime, however, as the QPI
potentially becomes the norm rather than the exception, it is
important that there is a continuous feedback loop that provides
input on the challenges and success of the QPI.
It is unclear exactly how this measure is intended to interact
with current QPI efforts. It is worthwhile, since the author
states that it is the intent of this measure to build upon the
QPI model, that it be interrelated to ensure that there is not
duplicity in implementation, and so that the input solicited
through a foster youth evaluation system is integrated into how
the QPI is implemented and sustained.
RECOMMENDED AMENDMENTS
To ensure that this legislative effort operates in coordination
with QPI efforts, AB 196 should be amended to ensure that foster
parent evaluations benefit efforts to recruit, train and retain
foster parents to improve outcomes for children in our CWS
system.
Specifically, staff recommends the following amendments:
On page three, line 35 before "(c)" insert the following:
(c) In the development of the parent evaluation process,
the department, in consultation with the stakeholders
identified pursuant to subdivision (a), shall consider how
information gathered from evaluations can inform continuous
improvement in existing and future efforts to recruit,
train and retain high quality foster parents.
On page three, line 35 before "The department" delete (c) and
insert (d).
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
AB 196
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California Youth Connection (CYC) - Sponsor
Children Now - co-sponsor
California Alliance of Child and Family Services
National Center for Youth Law (NCYL)
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Chris Reefe / HUM. S. / (916) 319-2089