BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Senator McGuire, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 260
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|Author: |Lopez |
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|Version: |April 7, 2015 |Hearing |June 23, 2015 |
| | |Date: | |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant|Sara Rogers |
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Subject: Foster care: parenting youth
SUMMARY
This bill establishes a declaration of the legislature that a
child shall not be considered to be at risk of abuse or neglect
solely on the basis of information concerning the parent's or
parents' placement history, past behaviors, or health or mental
health diagnoses occurring prior to the pregnancy, as specified,
and prohibits that history from being used in deciding a child's
placement, unless the court deems it materially relevant.
ABSTRACT
Existing law:
1)Provides that a child shall be within the jurisdiction of the
juvenile court when the child has suffered, or is of
substantial risk of suffering, serious physical harm or
illness as a result of the following: (WIC 300 (b))
a) A failure or inability of the parent or guardian to
adequately supervise or protect the minor;
b) A failure or inability of the parent or guardian to
adequately supervise or protect the minor from the
conduct of a custodian with whom the child has been left;
c) A willful or negligent failure of the parent or
guardian to provide the minor with adequate food,
clothing, shelter, or medical treatment;
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d) The inability of the parent or guardian to provide
regular care for the minor due to the paren'ts or
guardian's mental illness, developmental disability or
substance abuse.
2)Provides that, at the initial petition hearing, the court
shall make a determination based upon the social worker's
report or other evidence, as to whether reasonable efforts
were made to prevent the removal of the child and whether
there are available services that would prevent the need for
further detention.
3)Declares legislative intent that a child whose parent has been
adjudged a dependent child of the court pursuant to this
section shall not be considered to be at risk of abuse or
neglect solely because of the age, dependent status, or foster
care status of the parent. (WIC 300)
4)Establishes legislative intent to support the preservation of
families headed by minor parents and nonminor dependent
parents and provides 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 the minor parents and nonminor dependent
parents and their children. (WIC 16002.5)
5)Provides that, in all cases in which a minor is adjudged a
dependent child of the court as specified, the court may limit
parental control over an adjudged dependent child and requires
the court to clearly and specifically set forth those
limitations. Provides that such limitations may not exceed
those necessary to protect the child. Additionally provides
that a child shall not be taken from the physical custody of
the parent or guardian unless the court finds clear and
convincing evidence of a substantial danger to the child, and
there are no reasonable means to protect the child. (WIC 361)
6)Except as specified, requires the juvenile court to order the
county to provide child welfare family reunification services
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to the minor and the minor's parents or guardians, and permits
the court to order the parent or guardian to participate in
counseling or other treatment services. (WIC 361.5)
7)Provides that family reunification services are not required
to be provided if the court makes, upon clear and convincing
evidence, one of 16 specified findings, including:
a) That the court-ordered termination of reunification
services for any siblings or half siblings who had been
removed because the parent or guardian failed to reunify
and that parent or guardian has not subsequently made a
reasonable effort to treat the problems that led to
removal of the sibling or half sibling. (WIC 361.5 (b)
(10))
b) That parental rights of a parent over any sibling or
half sibling had been permanently severed and that parent
has not subsequently made a reasonable effort to treat
the problems that led to removal of the sibling or half
sibling. (WIC 361.5 (b) (11))
This bill:
1)Establishes a declaration of the legislature that a child
shall not be considered to be at risk of abuse or neglect
solely on the basis of a parent's placement history, past
behaviors, or health or mental health diagnoses occurring
prior to the pregnancy. Provides that such information may be
taken into account when considering whether other factors
exist that place the child at risk of abuse or neglect.
2)Provides that the findings by which a court may decline to
order family reunification services to a minor parent shall
not include WIC 361.5 (b) (10) and (11), described above,
unless one or more of the other 14 findings also apply.
3)Requires a party seeking foster care placement of or
termination of parental rights over, a child, whose parent was
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a minor when the child was born, to demonstrate that
reasonable efforts, using specified available resources, were
made to provide remedial services designed to prevent the
removal of the child and that these efforts were unsuccessful.
4)Requires the clerk of the superior court to maintain court
files and records concerning a dependent parent of a child who
is the subject of a dependency petition separately from the
files and records regarding that child.
5)Permits a dependent parent's dependency court records to be
disclosed to the county in the child's dependency proceedings,
but disallows these records from being admitted as evidence
unless required by a court order stating that these files and
records contain information materially relevant to the case,
as specified.
6)Requires foster care placements for minor parents and nonminor
dependent parents and their children to 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.
FISCAL IMPACT
According to an Assembly Appropriations Committee analysis,
there are potentially significant costs in excess of $150,000 to
the courts for increased administrative workload and additional
hearings.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
Purpose of the bill:
According to 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
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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 the lives of
children in their family unit rather than settling for
additional, unnecessary entrances into the system for those
children."
California Child Welfare System
The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) oversees a
58 county-administered Child Welfare Services (CWS) system which
responded to nearly 500,000 allegations reports of abuse,
neglect or exploitation in 2014, resulting in nearly 80,000
substantiations and 31,600 entries into foster care. Overall, as
of January 2015, there were nearly 63,000 children in foster
care placement, with nearly one in three residing in Los Angeles
County.
It is currently unknown how many current and former foster youth
are pregnant or parenting. When youth transition out of care,
counties report specified exit outcomes data to CDSS, including
the number of youth who are custodial parents. This data does
not include the number of youth who may not have custody of
their children. However, a recent research performed by the
University of Southern California, in collaboration with the
California Child Welfare Indicators Project at the University of
California at Berkeley and CDSS linked state child welfare
services data with birth records. The research found that:
Although only about 4 percent of teens in foster
care give birth in any given year, more than 25 percent
of girls who were in foster care at age 17 had given
birth at least once before age 20.
Among girls in foster care who first gave birth
before age 18, more than one in three had a second teen
birth.
By age 5, children born to teen mothers who were
victims of maltreatment were abused and neglected at
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twice the rate of other children.<1>
Juvenile Dependency Process
The juvenile dependency process is designed to provide maximum
safety and protection for children who currently are, or are at
risk of being physically, sexually, or emotionally abused, being
neglected, or being exploited, while at the same time
maintaining a focus on the preservation of the family. (WIC
300.2)
The court has broad authority to direct orders to the parent,
parents, or guardian of a minor who is subject to a dependency
proceeding as the court deems necessary and proper for the best
interests of the minor. These orders may concern the care,
supervision, custody, conduct, maintenance, and support of the
minor, including education and medical treatment."
Existing law permits a social worker to take a minor into
"temporary custody" if it is suspected that a child is being, or
is at risk of being abused or neglected. In such cases the abuse
has not yet been validated, the child has not yet been adjudged
to be a dependent of the court, and parental rights have not
been formally limited. The authority for the juvenile dependency
system to limit parental authority over children is subject to a
series of rigorous and lengthy hearings and extensive court
oversight designed to ensure that parental rights are only
limited to the extent necessary to protect the child. In
addition, the court may order a child to be a dependent of the
court but order the county welfare department to supervise while
the child remains at home. (WIC 300 et seq.)
Under current law, there is no prohibition against submitting as
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<1> California's Most Vulnerable Parents: When Maltreated
Children Have Children. November 2013.
http://www.chhs.ca.gov/CWCDOC/7California's%20Most%20Vulnerable_P
arents_Full_Report_11-11-13.pdf
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evidence, information contained in a parent's own dependency
case file, including information about the parent which may have
occurred prior to pregnancy and birth of the child.
Family Reunification and Maintenance Services
At the initial detention hearing and at subsequent hearings, the
court is required to consider whether reasonable efforts have
been made to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of the
child. Except in specified circumstances, whenever a child is
removed from a parent's or guardian's custody, the juvenile
court is required to order the social worker to provide child
welfare family reunification or family maintenance services.
(WIC 361.5, 11254 and 16507)) These encompass a broad range of
services, varying widely between counties, including case
management, parenting classes, counseling, mental health and
substance abuse treatment, transportation, home visiting and
in-home caretaking, emergency shelter care, and others. (WIC
16500 et seq.) These services are time limited and may be
terminated or extended if the court makes specified findings.
Related legislation:
SB 528 (Yee, Chapter 338, Statutes of 2013) authorized child
welfare agencies to provide dependent parents with access to
social workers and resource specialists, encouraged these
agencies to update case plans within 60 days of learning of a
pregnancy, authorized agencies to hold a specialized conference
to assist the pregnant/parenting minor or nonminor dependent,
required access to education be given to nonminor dependent
parents, authorized reasonable efforts be made to allow access
to school programs that provide child care for minor parents and
nonminor dependent parents, required that foster care placements
for nonminor dependent parents and their children be willing and
able to provide support to those parents and their children, and
declared the intent of the Legislature to ensure that data on
parenting minor and nonminor dependents is collected.
SB 500 (Kuehl, Chapter 630, Statutes of 2005) created an option
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for teen foster parents to live with their children in foster
homes.
SB 1178 (Kuehl, Chapter 841, Statutes of 2004) expressed the
intent of the Legislature 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.
COMMENTS
Existing law and case law provide that courts may consider past
events when determining whether a child is in present need of
the juvenile court's protection. This bill would prohibit the
determination that a child is at risk of abuse or neglect,
solely based on the parent's placement history in the child
welfare system, including past behaviors and mental health
diagnosis.
Recent hearings of the Senate Human Services committee regarding
overuse of psychotropic medication included widespread testimony
that dependent children are often mistakenly diagnosed with
mental illness, over-prescribed dangerous psychotropic
medications that worsen symptoms, and that the child's trauma
associated with his or her involvement in the child welfare
system may instigate or worsen a child's symptoms of mental
illness. Further, the hearing highlighted concerns that the
child welfare system frequently misresponds to
developmentally-appropriate behaviors or responses to trauma
given the challenging circumstances of the child. In such
circumstances, using potentially outdated or incorrect
information related to a parent's involvement in the child
welfare system as the sole basis for determining whether to deny
a parent from receiving family reunification service may create
unnecessary barriers to the maintenance or reunification
efforts.
Additionally, this bill permits the dependent or formerly
dependent parent's placement history to be disclosed to the
county in a child's dependency proceedings and permits this
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information to be a consideration in making its determination.
However, it prohibits the information from being admitted as
evidence in the child's dependency proceedings unless ordered by
the court. Given that the evidence considered by the court
includes a report from a child's social worker, it is unclear if
the entire social worker's report would be rendered inadmissible
without a further court order if it included information related
to the parent's dependency proceedings. Staff recommends the
author consider this issue further in the Senate Judiciary
Committee, should the bill pass to this committee.
Additionally, staff recommends the following technical
amendments:
Page 7, Lines 19-38 amend as follows:
(b) In the case of a child for whom one or both minor parents
have been adjudged to be dependent children of the juvenile
court pursuant to Section 300, all of the following shall apply:
(1) Paragraphs (10) and (11) of subdivision (b) of Section
361.5 shall not apply, unless one or more of the circumstances
described in paragraphs (1) to (9), inclusive, and paragraphs
(12) to (16), inclusive, of subdivision (b) of Section 361.5
apply.
(2) A party seeking an involuntary foster care placement of, or
termination of parental rights over, a child born to a parent or
parents who were minors or nonminor dependents at the time of
the child's birth shall demonstrate to the court that reasonable
efforts were made provide remedial services designed to prevent
the removal of the child from the minor parent or parents, and
that these efforts have proved unsuccessful.
(3) The efforts made pursuant to paragraph (2) shall utilize 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.
(c) For purposes of this section, "child" and "minor parent" ,
"minor parent" and "nonminor dependent parent" shall have the
same definitions as in Section 16002.5.
PRIOR VOTES
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|Assembly Floor: |78 - |
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|Assembly Appropriations Committee: |17 - |
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|Assembly Human Services Committee: |5 - |
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POSITIONS
Support:
California Alliance of Child and Family Services
Children Now
Oppose:
None received.
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