BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1911
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 5, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY
Mark Stone, Chair
AB 1911
(Eggman) - As Amended March 31, 2016
PROPOSED CONSENT
SUBJECT: Dual-status minorS: DATA COLLECTION
KEY ISSUE: IN ORDER TO BETTER UNDERSTAND HOW TO HELP YOUTH WHO
ARE INVOLVED WITH BOTH THE CHILD WELFARE AND THE JUVENILE
JUSTICE SYSTEMS, should COMMON IDENTIFIERS AND GOALS BE
DEVELOPED TO ASSIST COUNTIES IN better IDENTIFYING THESE DUALLY
INVOLVED YOUTH, BETTER ASSISTING THEM AND BETTER helping THEM
TRANSITION TO ADULTHOOD?
SYNOPSIS
There is general agreement that youth involved with both the
child welfare system and the juvenile justice system have
greater challenges to overcome to become responsible adults than
both youth involved with neither system and youth involved with
only one of those systems. Youth involved with both of those
systems have significantly poorer outcomes and require greater
support and services to address the underlying abuse or neglect,
reduce recidivism and foster rehabilitation. Over the years,
various legislation and pilot projects have attempted to address
AB 1911
Page 2
the needs of these youth, but there has yet to be a
comprehensive statewide approach to meeting the needs of these
youth and helping them successfully transition to adulthood.
To help address how to better meet the needs of these youth, the
Joint Legislative Audit Committee, at the request of this bill's
author, asked the State Auditor to determine how well counties
are serving youth involved with both the child welfare and
juvenile welfare systems. Unfortunately, the Auditor was unable
to determine which counties had successful programs because the
Auditor found that counties were unable to accurately identify
and track these dually involved youth. As a result, the Auditor
recommended that the state child welfare automation system
identify dually involved youth and that stakeholders, under the
leadership of the Judicial Council, develop common data to
collect, track and evaluate outcomes for these youth and report
those recommendations to the Legislature. This bill, sponsored
by the Children's Advocacy Institute, seeks to implement those
recommendations. This bill is supported by Children Now and has
no opposition.
SUMMARY: Requires the development and implementation of
standardized definitions and defined goals for youth involved
with both the child welfare system and the juvenile justice
system. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the Judicial Council to convene a committee of
stakeholders serving the needs of dependents and wards of the
juvenile court, including judges; social workers; probation
officers; education officials; youth, attorneys and advocates
involved with both the child welfare and juvenile justice; and
representatives from the Department of Social Services (DSS),
child welfare agencies and probation agencies. Requires the
committee, by January 1, 2018, to develop and report to the
Legislature recommendations to facilitate and enhance
comprehensive data and outcome tracking for youth involved in
AB 1911
Page 3
both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Recommendations must include:
a) Common identifiers and standard definitions for counties
to use across child welfare and juvenile justice systems;
b) Identified and defined outcomes for counties to track
youth involved in both systems, including, but not limited
to, outcomes related to recidivism, health, pregnancy,
homelessness, employment and education;
c) Established baselines for outcomes to be tracked; and
d) An assessment of costs and benefits associated with
requiring counties to implement the committee's
recommendations.
2)Requires DSS, by January 1, 2019, to implement a function
within the child welfare automation system that will allow
county child welfare and juvenile justice departments to
identify youth involved in both systems and to issue
instructions to all counties on how to track completely and
consistently the involvement of these youth in both systems.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Provides that a juvenile court has jurisdiction over a child
who is subject to abuse or neglect. (Welfare and Institutions
Code Section 300. Unless stated otherwise, all further
statutory references are to that code.)
AB 1911
Page 4
2)Provides that a juvenile court has jurisdiction over a child
when that child has committed acts that trigger delinquency
jurisdiction rendering the child a ward. (Sections 601 and
602.)
3)Requires that, if a child is both a dependent and a
delinquent, the probation department and child welfare
services agency must initially determine which status will
best serve the interests of the child and the protection of
society. Notwithstanding the above, authorizes the probation
department and the child welfare services agency in any
county, in consultation with the presiding juvenile court
judge, to create a dual status protocol which would permit a
minor who meets specified criteria to be designated
simultaneously as both a dependent child and a ward of the
juvenile court. (Section 241.1.)
FISCAL EFFECT: As currently in print this bill is keyed fiscal.
COMMENTS: There is general agreement that youth involved with
both the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system
have greater challenges to overcome to become responsible adults
than both youth involved with neither system and youth involved
with only one of those systems. Youth involved with both of
those systems have significantly poorer outcomes and require
greater support and services to address the underlying abuse or
neglect, reduce recidivism and foster rehabilitation. Over the
years, various legislation and pilot projects have attempted to
address the needs of these youth, but there has yet to be a
comprehensive statewide approach to meeting the needs of these
youth and helping them successfully transition to adulthood.
To help address how to better meet the needs of these youth, the
Joint Legislative Audit Committee, at the request of this bill's
author, asked the State Auditor to determine how well counties
AB 1911
Page 5
are serving youth involved with both the child welfare and
juvenile welfare systems. Unfortunately, the Auditor was unable
to determine which counties had successful programs because the
Auditor found that counties were unable to accurately identify
and track these dually involved youth. As a result, the Auditor
recommended that the state child welfare automation system
identify dually involved youth and that stakeholders, under the
leadership of the Judicial Council, develop common data to
collect, track and evaluate outcomes for these youth and report
those recommendations to the Legislature. This bill seeks to
implement those recommendations.
Foster youth too often end up in the delinquency system and may
need even greater support and services in order to transition
effectively to adulthood. Foster youth are far more likely than
the general population to become involved with the juvenile
justice system:
Youth put in care were three times more likely to be
arrested, convicted, and imprisoned as adults compared to
those who were allowed to remain at home. This indicates
that, after controlling for abuse severity, foster care
experience has some additional impact on future criminality
beyond the effects of abuse and neglect?. For children and
juveniles in out-of-home placements, experiences of abuse
and neglect are often compounded by other negative
experiences and factors?. The extensive needs of children
who are placed in foster care often go unmet, increasing
the likelihood that youth will engage in future delinquent
behavior.
(Erin McLaughlin, Dual-System Youth: The Need for Systems
Integration to Improve Outcomes for Foster Youth who Commit
Delinquent Acts 16-17 (2009).) Foster youth are "not only more
likely to be arrested as juveniles than their peers not in care,
they are also more likely to be arrested at a younger age and
AB 1911
Page 6
more likely to recidivate." (Id. at 11.)
Other youth may begin involvement with the delinquency system,
but their involvement in that system may actually stem, at least
in part, from a chaotic home life, and there may be no safe and
supportive home to which they may return after their juvenile
justice involvement. Thus they begin their involvement with the
juvenile justice system, but end up involved with the child
welfare system. For some of these youth, if their home life had
been better understood initially, they may have been able to
avoid the juvenile justice system entirely and obtain the needed
protection and support from the child welfare system.
The outcomes for youth involved with both the child welfare and
the juvenile justice systems are far bleaker than youth involved
with only one of those systems. According to a study conducted
in 2011 of youth in Los Angeles County, youth involved in both
the child welfare and the juvenile justice systems had less
desirable outcomes on a whole host of measures, including
subsequent jail time, lower educational attainment, and a lower
likelihood of being consistently employed, as compared with
youth involved with only one of the systems. (Dennis Culhane,
et al., Young Adult Outcomes of Youth Exiting Dependent or
Delinquent Care In Los Angeles County (2011).)
Describing the results of that study, the California Child
Welfare Co-Investment Partnership wrote:
Young people who come into contact with both the child
welfare and juvenile justice systems are among the most
vulnerable of California's children. These young people
are more likely to be separated from their families,
experience frequent placement changes, suffer behavioral
health problems, and have poor educational outcomes when
compared with children not in contact with both systems.
AB 1911
Page 7
(California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership,
Crossover Youth: A Shared Responsibility p.1 Volume X
(Winner 2016) (citation omitted).)
Moreover, a higher percentage of young adults who had been
involved with both systems were extremely poor, as compared with
youth involved with only one of the systems: Roughly half of
young adults who had been involved with both systems as youth
were in extreme poverty, as compared with a quarter of those
formerly involved with the juvenile justice system and a third
of those formerly involved with the child welfare system. Taken
together, these findings make clear that the prospects for youth
involved with both systems is much bleaker than for other youth.
Dual Status Jurisdiction: In an effort to allow for better
oversight of youth who are involved with both the child welfare
and juvenile justice systems, counties, should they so elect,
may adopt dual status protocols which permit children to be both
dependents and wards at the same time. (AB 129 (Cohn), Chap.
468, Stats. 2004.) Dual status for children who are both wards
and dependents allows for better oversight and coordination
between child welfare and probation. This voluntary program
authorizes the probation department and the child welfare agency
in any county, in consultation with the presiding juvenile court
judge, to create a dual status protocol to permit a youth who
meets specified criteria to be designated simultaneously as both
a dependent child and a ward of the juvenile court.
According to the Judicial Council website, only 18 of
California's 58 counties have elected to develop these
protocols, but those counties include Los Angeles, San Diego,
Santa Clara, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, so that most
youth involved with both the dependency and delinquency systems
in California today live in dual-status jurisdictions. Because
of the local flexibility, the dual status jurisdictions have
different operating protocols and may or may not be comparable.
AB 1911
Page 8
Additionally, even some counties who have not elected to
establish dual-status protocols are still working on their own
projects to help this most vulnerable population.
State Auditor unable to report on best practices because neither
state nor local agencies consistently tracked data for youth
involved with both the child welfare and juvenile justice
systems. The State Auditor, as directed by the Joint
Legislative Audit Committee, was to determine how well counties
are serving youth involved with both the child welfare and
juvenile justice systems. Unfortunately, the State Auditor
found it could not generally determine how county programs were
performing because the state had not issued guidelines to the
counties on how to track or even identify these youth, and thus,
it was "difficult to determine the success of county efforts."
(California State Auditor, Dually Involved Youth: The State
Cannot Determine the Effectiveness of Efforts to Serve Youth Who
Are Involved in Both the Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice
Systems Report 2015-115 p. 2 (Feb. 2016).)
The State Auditor first determined that while the dual status
jurisdiction legislation has existed for over a decade, state
agencies have provided little guidance to the counties on how to
track and support those youth who are both dependents and wards,
including defining the relevant terms or establishing outcomes
that counties should track. The Auditor then reviewed six
counties, three that have adopted the dual-status protocols -
Los Angeles, Riverside and Santa Clara - and three that have not
- Alameda, Kern and Sacramento - and found that there was no
consistent way to track terms and outcomes. Without consistent
definitions, and tracking of attributes and outcomes, it is
impossible to reach conclusions about best models and practices,
determined the Auditor. For example, the counties all defined
recidivism differently, so it was impossible to say which
protocols, programs or services might be working to reduce
recidivism in these youth. Even more disconcerting, according
to the Auditor, fully five of the six counties reviewed could
AB 1911
Page 9
not even accurately identify the total number of youth they had
determined were dually involved. However, four of the six
counties are now starting to develop mechanisms to better track
various data and outcomes
Additionally, the counties only track a small subset of
outcomes. For example, none of the counties tracked education
measures, such as graduation rates, and most counties did not
even track future juvenile justice involvement for dually
involved youth, rather they only tracked outcomes for youth
generally involved in the juvenile justice system. Thus, even
if the counties were to define terms consistently, the state
would still not be able to determine best practices unless the
counties track the same outcome measures. Regardless, the
Auditor was able to determine that the model the counties chose
to use - whether dual status or not - appeared to have only a
small impact on outcomes for these youth or on the services
offered to them. Thus, the State Auditor's recommendations are
all based on developing uniform measurements for better tracking
youth involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice
systems, so that the state can begin to understand what the best
practices may be.
The Auditor also recommends that DSS, which operates the state
case management automation system for tracking youth in the
child welfare system - Child Welfare Services/Case Management
System, develop a function in that system to allow staff in both
the child welfare and juvenile justice systems to identify youth
involved with both systems and issue guidance to the counties on
how to use that function and fully track those youth. This
should help ensure that California has a true statewide system
and helps ensure that youth do not get lost in any cracks that
exist between counties.
This bill implements the recommendations of the State Auditor.
This bill seeks to implement the recommendations of the State
AB 1911
Page 10
Auditor by doing two key things. First, this bill requires the
Judicial Council to convene a group of stakeholders serving the
needs of dependents and wards of the juvenile court. The
stakeholders include judges; social workers; probation officers;
education officials; youth, attorneys and advocates involved
with both the child welfare and juvenile justice; and
representatives from DSS, child welfare agencies and probation
agencies. The committee is required to develop recommendations
to facilitate and enhance comprehensive data and outcome
tracking for youth involved in both the child welfare and
juvenile justice systems. Recommendations must include: (1)
common identifiers and standard definitions for counties to use
across child welfare and juvenile justice systems; (2)
identified and defined outcomes for counties to track youth
involved in both systems, including outcomes related to
recidivism, health, pregnancy, homelessness, employment and
education; (3) established baselines for outcomes to be tracked;
and (4) an assessment of costs and benefits associated with
requiring counties to implement the committee's recommendations.
To ensure that the stakeholder committee has broad authority to
determine how best to define and track these youth, this
legislation provides a very broad definition of dually involved
youth - youth that have some involvement in both the child
welfare and juvenile justice systems. This does not require
that these youths have become both dependents and wards of the
juvenile court, which would require the court to rule on their
status. Rather, it simply requires some level of involvement
from both systems, perhaps just complaints and investigations on
the child welfare side and arrests only on the juvenile justice
side. Leaving the definition broad allows the stakeholder
committee to determine what the best way is to track and support
youth involved with both systems.
The recommendations must be reported to the Legislature by
January 1, 2018. This will allow the Legislature, two years
AB 1911
Page 11
from now, to review the recommendations and decide what is
appropriate to mandate, on a statewide-level in order to better
track, assist and serve these youth and help them transition to
adulthood more successfully. This bill should start the process
to provide the Legislature with the information it lacks today
to determine how best to help these youth.
The bill also requires DSS, by January 1, 2019, to implement a
function with the child welfare automation system -- the Child
Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS) -- that will
allow county child welfare and juvenile justice departments to
identify youth involved in both systems and then, hopefully,
provide better, targeted services to them. DSS is also required
to issue instructions to the counties to tell them how to track
completely and consistently the involvement of these youth in
both systems. This should help ensure that the counties
properly use the new function and then are able to identify and
provide appropriate services to these vulnerable youth. Again,
this new identification and tracking tool is only the means to
the end. The hoped for end is that, with this new tool,
counties are able to provide better support and services to
youth involved with both the child welfare and juvenile justice
systems.
This bill is the first step for the state to design, implement
and perhaps mandate programs across the board to help this most
vulnerable group of youth. It will help create common terms and
outcomes to be tracked and will allow the Legislature to
determine, two years from now, whether those terms and outcomes
should be used implement and studied statewide, so that
California can develop the best approaches to support these
youth and help them better transition to successful adulthood.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
AB 1911
Page 12
Support
Children's Advocacy Institute (sponsor)
Children Now
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Leora Gershenzon / JUD. / (916) 319-2334