BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



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          Date of Hearing:  September 4, 2015 


                             ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON RULES


                                Richard Gordon, Chair


          ACR 103  
          (McCarty) - As Introduced August 26, 2015


          SUBJECT:  Court Adoption and Permanency Month.


          SUMMARY:  Designates November 2015 as Court Adoption and  
          Permanency Month and encourages the courts and their local  
          communities to join in activities to expedite permanency for  
          children.  Specifically, this resolution makes the following  
          legislative findings:


          1)Consistent with its commitment to support practices and  
            procedures that promote access to justice and improved case  
            outcomes for California's children and families, the Judicial  
            Council has recognized November as Court Adoption and  
            Permanency Month every year since 1999.


          2)Each year in California nearly half a million incidents of  
            child abuse and neglect are reported and about 23,400 children  
            enter child welfare-supervised foster care for the first time  
            each year; and nearly 62,000 California children live apart  
            from their families in child welfare-supervised out-of-home  
            care.


          3)Thirty-eight percent of the children in foster care in  








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            California have lived apart from their families for two or  
            more years.  Twenty-four percent of the youth in care are  
            transitional-age youth between 16 and 20 years of age.


          4)Of the more than 26,000 California children who left foster  
            care in 2014, approximately 57 percent were reunited with  
            their families, 22 percent were adopted, and 6 percent exited  
            foster care without reunifying or obtaining a permanent home  
            by the time they reached the age of majority.


          5)Programs promoting permanency have been created by local  
            courts and communities in California that have resulted in a  
            reduction in the number of children waiting to live in safe,  
            stable, and permanent homes.


          6)The Judicial Council remains committed to working with the  
            Governor, the Legislature, and local courts and communities to  
            ensure that every abused or neglected child finds a safe,  
            stable, and permanent home with a loving family as quickly as  
            possible.


          FISCAL EFFECT:  None


          REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:




          Support


          None on file










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          Opposition


          None on file




          Analysis Prepared by:Nicole Willis / RLS. / (916) 319-2800