BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 260
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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).)
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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).)
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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
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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
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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
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None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Leora Gershenzon / JUD. / (916) 319-2334