BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1911
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Date of Hearing: May 4, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
1911 (Eggman) - As Amended March 31, 2016
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|Policy |Judiciary |Vote:|10 - 0 |
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| |Human Services | |7 - 0 |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY: This bill 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
AB 1911
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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
systems, and representatives from the Department of Social
Services (DSS), child welfare agencies and probation agencies.
2)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 both the child welfare and juvenile justice
systems, as specified.
3)Requires DSS, by January 1, 2019, to implement a function
within the child welfare services 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 completely and
consistently track the involvement of these youth in both
systems.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Costs of approximately $100,000 to the Judicial Council to
convene a stakeholder group and to develop and report
recommendations to the Legislature.
2)Minor and absorbable costs to DSS. DSS indicates they are
already working to implement these requirements from the State
Auditor's report.
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COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. This bill seeks to implement recommendations from
the State Auditor's Report issued in February 2016. According
to the author, "For youth involved in both the child welfare
and juvenile justice systems, coordination is critical in
order to ensure the proper services are identified and
delivered. In current law, there are no standardized
definitions for terms relating to youth involved in both
systems, nor is there an integrated system to track and
monitor youth and outcomes. Without standardized definitions
of what it means to be a youth involved in both the child
welfare and juvenile justice systems or identified outcomes
for counties to track, there is little that can be done to
track this population of youth. This bill provides guidance
to the counties, including definitions, common identifiers,
and identified outcomes to better track youth involved in both
the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system.
Proper tracking systems will enable California to better serve
one of its most vulnerable populations."
2)State Auditor report. At the direction of the Joint
Legislative Audit Committee, the California State Auditor was
tasked with determining how well counties are serving youth
involved with both the child welfare and delinquency system.
Because the state has not issued guidelines to the counties on
how to track or identify youth, the State Auditor was unable
to determine how county programs were performing.
The Auditor, therefore, recommended that DSS, which is tasked
with operating the state case management automation system for
tracking youth in the child welfare system -the Child Welfare
Services/Case Management System- develop a function in the
system that will allow child welfare and juvenile justice
systems staff to identify and track dual status youth. The
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goal of this recommendation is to ensure that California has
statewide consistency in its management systems that will help
ensure dual-status youth receive all necessary supports and
services.
3)Dual status jurisdiction. Current law authorizes counties to
adopt dual status protocols in order to allow for better
oversight and provision of services to youth who are involved
in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Counties that elect to participate in this voluntary program
are tasked with creating a dual status protocol to permit a
youth who meets specified criteria to be designated as both a
dependent child and a ward of the court simultaneously.
According to Judicial Council, only 18 of California's 58
counties have elected to develop these protocols, but these
include the largest counties, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa
Clara, Riverside, and San Bernardino, so most youth involved
with both the dependency and delinquency systems in California
today live in dual-status jurisdictions.
4)Related Legislation. AB 2813 (Bloom), 2016, prohibits a
probation officer from considering a minor's status as a
foster youth or current availability of a placement when
making the decision whether or not to detain, and requires a
probation officer to immediately release a minor to the
custody of the child welfare services department, a caregiver,
or a foster parent, unless it can be demonstrated that the
minor's detention is necessary. This bill is before this
Committee today.
5)Prior Legislation. AB 388 (Chesbro), Chapter 760, Statutes of
2014, specified that a dependent ward of the juvenile court is
not necessarily subject to other sanctions because of his or
her status as a dependent of the court.
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Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916)
319-2081