BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 260 Page 1 Date of Hearing: April 21, 2015 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY Mark Stone, Chair AB 260 (Lopez) - As Amended April 7, 2015 SUBJECT: Foster care: parenting youth KEY ISSUE: SHOULD THE LAW BE REFINED TO BETTER support and ADDRESS THE UNIQUE NEEDS OF PARENTING FOSTER YOUTH and their children? SYNOPSIS The goal of this legislation, sponsored by California Youth Connection, is to help support foster youth who become parents and their children, and stop what the author sees as the "cycle of foster care." Of particular relevance for this Committee, this bill directs the court to keep the child's files separate from his or her dependent parent's files, and allows the parent's files to be admitted as evidence in the child's dependency case only if the court determines that they are materially relevant to the child's case. This should help prevent the misuse of the parent's otherwise confidential and potentially irrelevant and damaging foster care case file from being used in the child's case, while still ensuring that courts and social workers have information necessary to protect the child. This bill passed out of the Assembly Human Services Committee last week on a vote of 5-0. This bill is supported AB 260 Page 2 by, among others, the Alliance for Children's Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, Disability Rights California, and the Family Law Section of the State Bar. There is no known opposition. SUMMARY: Provides support and protections for parenting foster youth. Specifically, this bill: 1)Declares that the child of a foster child is not considered at risk of abuse or neglect based solely on information regarding the parent's placement history, past behaviors, or health or mental health diagnoses prior to the pregnancy, although such information may be taken into account when considering whether other factors exist that place the child at risk of abuse or neglect. 2)Requires that the court clerk maintain the court files and records of a dependent parent (whether minor or nonminor) separately from the files and records of his or her child who is the subject of a dependency petition. 3)Allows a dependent parent's dependency court records to be disclosed to the county in his or her child's dependency proceedings, but prevents those records from being admitted as evidence in the child's dependency proceeding except by court order stating that those files and records contain information materially relevant to the case, as specified. 4)For a child with one or more minor dependent parents: a) Nullifies the provision that reunification services need not be provided in instances where there has been a termination of reunification services for, or permanent severance of, parental rights over any siblings or half siblings, as specified, unless other specified AB 260 Page 3 circumstances removing the necessity for reunification services also exist; and b) Requires a party seeking foster care placement of, or termination of parental rights over, a child with one or both parents who were minors when the child was born to demonstrate that reasonable efforts using available resources, as specified, were made to provide services aimed at preventing the removal of the child and that these efforts were unsuccessful. Requires those efforts to use the available resources of the child and his or her minor parent's or parents' extended family, social services agencies, caregivers, and other available service providers. 5)Requires that foster care placements for minor and nonminor dependent parents and their children support the preservation of the family unit and provide services, as specified, to prevent, whenever possible, the filing of a petition to declare the child a dependent of the juvenile court. EXISTING LAW: 1)Allows a juvenile court to adjudicate a child a dependent of the court as the result of abuse or neglect, as specified. (Welfare & Institutions Code Section 300. Unless stated otherwise, all further statutory references are to that code.) 2)Declares legislative intent that a child shall not be considered to be at risk of abuse or neglect solely because of the age, dependent status, or foster care status of his or her parent. (Id.) 3)Limits access to juvenile case files, as defined, to specified individuals and officials, including the child's parent or guardian, attorneys for the parties, court and state personnel, including law enforcement and child protective AB 260 Page 4 services, and school district officials. Prohibits any party authorized to inspect a juvenile court case file from disseminating the file or its contents unless otherwise permitted. (Section 827(a).) 4)Declares legislative intent to maintain the continuity of the family unit and to support and preserve families headed by minor parents and nonminor dependent parents who are themselves under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court by ensuring that minor parents and nonminor dependent parents and their children are placed together in as family-like a setting as possible, unless it has been determined that placement together poses a risk to the child. (Section 16002.5.) 5)Requires that foster care placements for minor parents and nonminor dependent parents and their children shall demonstrate a willingness and ability to provide support and assistance to minor parents and nonminor dependent parents and their children. (Id.) 6)States the intent of the Legislature to preserve and strengthen a child's family ties whenever possible and to reunify a foster youth with his or her biological family whenever possible, or to provide a permanent placement alternative, such as adoption or guardianship. (Section 16000.) 7)Requires the court to make a determination as to whether reasonable efforts were made to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of a minor from his or her home, as specified. (Section 361.) 8)Establishes circumstances under which family reunification services should be ordered to be provided for families and AB 260 Page 5 stipulates instances when, upon the court finding clear and convincing evidence, reunification services need not be supplied to a parent or guardian, as specified. (Section 361.5(b).) FISCAL EFFECT: As currently in print this bill is keyed fiscal. COMMENTS: The goal of this legislation is to help support foster youth, who become parents while in the foster care system, and their children, and stop what the author sees as the "cycle of foster care." Of particular relevance for this Committee, this bill directs the court to keep the child's files separate from his or her dependent parent's files, and allows the parent's files to be admitted as evidence in the child's dependency case only if the court determines that they are materially relevant to the child's case. This balances the interest of all parties, and should help prevent the misuse of the parent's otherwise confidential and potentially irrelevant and damaging foster care case file from being used in the child's case when that information is not directly relevant to the child's case. It will, however, allow use of the parent's information when relevant to protect the child. States the author: It is vital that we initiate a culture shift around the way we think about parenting foster youth. Instead of making it more difficult for these youth or overlooking their unique needs as parents living within the dependency system, we should be supporting them in their goals to create a healthy family in the same way we support their goals for higher education, career/professional, or any other permanency outcomes our system seeks to achieve for them. By working to break the cycle of foster care, we can ensure our foster youth can succeed while also preserving AB 260 Page 6 the lives of children in their family unit rather than settling for additional, unnecessary entrances into the system for those children. Sponsor California Youth Connection adds: While the prospect of growing up in foster care can be challenging, raising a child without adequate support from the system meant to serve them can be even more daunting for a parenting youth. It is vital that we eliminate the flaws in how these stigmatized parents are treated by finally aligning practice with the policy of encouraging youth's success and ultimately keeping families together. Pregnant and Parenting Foster Youth - Data and Difficulties. Currently, there are no comprehensive data on the size of the state's population of pregnant and parenting foster youth, but evidence of higher pregnancy and parenting rates for foster youth exists. Researchers connecting Child Protective Services data with birth records in California found that, of girls in foster care at the age of 17, more than one-quarter had given birth at least once during their teens. Of girls in foster care who had given birth at least once before the age of 18, over one-third had more than one birth in their teens. (Emily Putnam-Hornstein et al., California's Most Vulnerable Parents: When Maltreated Children Have Children (Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Nov. 2013).) These findings were corroborated by a much smaller, more in-depth study that interviewed over 700 17-year-old foster youth and former foster youth in California and found that just over one-fourth of respondents had ever been pregnant; 30% of whom had been pregnant more than once. (Mark Courtney et al., Findings from California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 2014).) AB 260 Page 7 While parenting can present any young parent with significant challenges, those challenges are far greater for foster youth: Parenting youths in foster care are among the most vulnerable respondents in neglect and abuse proceedings. Not only are they in foster care, but also, as parents and expectant parents, they are subject to a heightened level of scrutiny by virtue of living in a highly structured environment staffed with mandated reporters. Our youth-in-care clients almost always face allegations by foster parents or staff members in congregate care settings, such as mother-child placements or maternity residences. Some common allegations against young mothers in foster care are being missing from care-or "awoling"- either with or without the subject child and either prior to or during pregnancy; missing curfew either with or without the subject child and either prior to or during pregnancy; taking the child to homes or locations not cleared and approved by the agency; failing to follow directives or suggestions on the care of the subject child from an agency staff member or a foster parent; failing to attend school, a General Educational Development program, or job training; behaving in a difficult-to-control manner in a congregate care facility or a foster home; and not complying with recommended therapeutic treatment or medication management or both for a mental health diagnosis such as bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, or posttraumatic stress disorder. (Rebecca Horwitz, Protection v. Presentment, When Youth in Foster Care Become Respondents in Child Welfare Proceedings, 45 Clearinghouse Review: Journal of Poverty Law and Policy Numbers 9-10, 421, 426 (Jan.-Feb. 2012) (footnotes omitted).) AB 260 Page 8 This Bill Seeks to Address Those Difficulties and Better Support Parenting Foster Youth. This bill seeks to help support pregnant and parenting foster youth preserve their families in several ways. First, it limits the inappropriate use of outdated or irrelevant information as a means for removing a child from the care of a parenting foster youth by (1) requiring the court clerk to maintain the court files and records of the dependent parent separately from the files and records of his or her child who is the subject of a dependency petition; and (2) allowing a dependent parent's court records to be disclosed to the county in his or her child's dependency proceedings, but preventing those records from being admitted as evidence in the child's dependency proceeding, except by court order stating that those files and records contain information materially relevant to the case. The parent's dependency files may contain years of very private information about the parent's health, mental health, education and welfare, perhaps going all the way back to infancy. Given the nature of what is in a typical dependency case file, this information could potentially be very damaging to the parent's quest to retain custody of his or her child. However, much if not all of this information could be completely irrelevant to the foster youth's present-day ability to safely care for his or her child. The Alliance for Children's Rights explains the need for this provision to parenting foster youth: The youth we work with are determined to provide a better childhood for their children then they experienced, and are often receptive to intervention they may have previously rejected. AB 260 recognizes this moment of opportunity, and will prevent certain information about prior incidents and resolved past behaviors from being used inappropriately to detain a parenting foster youth's child. Additionally, this bill recognizes the fact that a parenting foster youth may have more than one child and removes barriers AB 260 Page 9 to reunification services for these youth that can exist for parents who have histories of interaction with the child welfare system related to siblings or half siblings of their child. Instead of preventing a parenting foster youth from accessing services to help them maintain their family, the goal of this bill is to assure that these youth have access to those services and supports that will help them, and their children, remain an intact family unit, while still helping ensure that the child is safe. This bill seeks to encourage more reunification efforts for parenting foster youth by eliminating the provision that reunification services need not be provided where there has been a termination of reunification services or a severance of parental rights over any siblings or half sibling, at least with respect to minor dependent parents, since this helpful provision only applies to minor parents. Finally, this bill strengthens requirements for foster placements for parenting youth to be supportive of family maintenance for those youth and their children by requiring that before either a foster care placement or termination of parental rights for a child who has one or both minor parents in the foster care system reasonable efforts must be made to keep the child with his or her parents. These efforts include using the available resources of the child and his or her minor parent's or parents' extended family, social services agencies, caregivers, and other available service providers. This should help allow more youth to receive supportive services and, hopefully, safely retain or regain custody of their children, although this helpful provision only applies to minor dependent parents. Prior Legislation: SB 500 (Kuehl), Chap. 630, Stats. 2005, created an option for teen foster parents to live with their children in foster homes. SB 1178 (Kuehl), Chap. 841, Stats. 2004, the Teen Parents in AB 260 Page 10 Foster Care Act, expressed the Legislature's intent to preserve and strengthen family relationships between minor dependent parents and their dependent children and required the foster care system to treat these families as a unit rather than as individuals. REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION: Support California Youth Connection (sponsor) Alliance for Children's Rights American Civil Liberties Union of California American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO Disability Rights California Family Law Section of the State Bar Opposition AB 260 Page 11 None on file Analysis Prepared by:Leora Gershenzon / JUD. / (916) 319-2334