BILL ANALYSIS Ó
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1911|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
|327-4478 | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1911
Author: Eggman (D)
Amended: 8/15/16 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE: 4-0, 6/14/16
AYES: McGuire, Hancock, Liu, Nguyen
NO VOTE RECORDED: Berryhill
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: 7-0, 6/21/16
AYES: Jackson, Moorlach, Anderson, Hertzberg, Leno, Monning,
Wieckowski
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 8/11/16
AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, McGuire, Mendoza, Nielsen
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 5/12/16 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT: Dual status minors
SOURCE: The Childrens Advocacy Institute
DIGEST: This bill requires the Judicial Council to convene a
committee of stakeholders involved in serving the needs of
juvenile dependents and wards to develop and report to the
Legislature, by January 1, 2018, recommendations to facilitate
and enhance comprehensive data and outcome tracking for the
state's dual-status youth. This bill also requires the
California Department of Social Services (CDSS), on or before
January, 1, 2019, to implement a function within the applicable
child welfare case management system that will enable county
child welfare agencies and probation departments to identify
dual-status youth within their counties, and to issue
AB 1911
Page 2
instructions to all counties on the manner in which to
completely and consistently track the involvement of these youth
in both systems.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Establishes a child welfare system for children who are or are
at risk of being physically, sexually or emotionally abused,
being neglected or being exploited to ensure their safety,
protection and physical and emotional well-being. (Welfare and
Institutions Code (WIC) 300, et seq.)
2)Establishes a juvenile justice system for any child or youth
who violates any state, federal or local law, except those
crimes serious enough to warrant prosecution as an adult if
committed by a youth over age 14. (WIC 602)
3)Requires that whenever a minor appears to come within both the
dependency and delinquency descriptions, the county probation
and the child welfare services departments shall jointly
determine which status will serve the best interests of the
minor and the protection of society, and develop a joint
written protocol to ensure coordination. Both recommendations
shall be presented to the juvenile court with the petition
that is filed on behalf of the minor, and the court shall
determine which status is appropriate for the minor. (WIC
241.1)
4)Prohibits the filing of a petition or petitions, or the entry
of an order by the juvenile court, to make a minor
simultaneously both a dependent child and a ward of the court,
except under specific written protocol that allows the county
probation department and the child welfare services department
to jointly assess and produce a recommendation that the child
AB 1911
Page 3
be designated as a dual status child. (WIC 241.1 (d))
5)Requires that any dual status protocol include a plan to
collect data in order to evaluate the protocol, as specified.
(WIC 241.1. (d)(4))
6)Requires the Judicial Council to collect and compile all of
the data and to prepare an evaluation of the results of the
new protocol for a representative sample of the counties that
create a protocol for dual status minors. Requires the
Judicial Council to report its findings and any resulting
recommendations to the Legislature within two years of the
date those counties first deem a child to be a dual status
child. (WIC 241.2)
7)Requires the Judicial Council to review all proposed protocols
to ensure that they provide for the collection of adequate,
standardized data to perform these evaluations. In order to
assist counties with data collection and evaluation, permits
the Judicial Council to prepare model data collection and
evaluation provisions that a county must include in their
protocol. (WIC 241.2)
This bill:
1)Deletes WIC Section 241.2, which mandates data collection and
analysis of the dual status protocols and requires a report to
the Legislature on its findings.
2)Creates a new Section 241.2, which 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 systems, and
representatives from CDSS, child welfare agencies and
AB 1911
Page 4
probation agencies.
3)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.
4)Requires that the committee's recommendations to include, but
not be limited to, all of the following:
a) A common identifier for counties to use to reconcile
data across child welfare and juvenile justice systems
statewide.
b) Standardized definitions for terms related to the
populations of youth involved in both the child welfare
system and the juvenile justice system.
c) Identified and defined outcomes for counties to track
youth involved in both the child welfare system and the
juvenile justice system, including, but not limited to,
outcomes related to recidivism, health, pregnancy,
homelessness, employment, and education.
d) Established baselines and goals for the identified and
defined outcomes, as specified.
e) An assessment as to the costs and benefits associated
with requiring all counties to implement the committee's
recommendations.
f) An assessment of whether a single technology system,
including, but not limited to, the State Department of
Social Services' Child Welfare Services/Case Management
System (CWS/CMS) or the Child Welfare Services-New System
(CWS-NS), is needed to track youth in the child welfare
system and the juvenile justice system.
AB 1911
Page 5
5)Requires CDSS, by January 1, 2019, to implement a function
within the applicable case management system that will enable
county child welfare agencies and county probation 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.
Background
This bill seeks to facilitate counties' ability to identify and
track youth who are involved in both the child welfare and the
juvenile justice systems. Currently, lack of common
identifiers, standardized definitions, and defined outcomes make
it difficult to track this population of youth.
Dual Status Youth
In 2004, California passed AB 129 (Cohn, Chapter 468, Statutes
of 2004), which made it possible for "dual status youth" who are
involved in both the child welfare services and the juvenile
justice systems to receive the oversight and benefits of both
systems. Prior to passage of AB 129, the law required that
cases involving foster youth who were also involved in the
juvenile justice system had to be placed into either the child
welfare or the justice system.
AB 129 allowed counties to voluntarily adopt formal dual status
protocols, through which youth can simultaneously be under the
formal jurisdiction of both the dependency and delinquency
courts. Per AB 129, those protocols must describe the process
for assessing the eligibility for and necessity of dual status
youth, the communication between judges in the dependency and
delinquency courts, the collection of data for the Judicial
Council evaluation, and the adoption of either a "lead
court/lead agency" or "on-hold" model.
AB 1911
Page 6
AB 129 also required Judicial Council to collect and compile
data, to evaluate the results of implementing the dual status
protocols, and reports its finding to the Legislature. The
study, which was conducted in 2007, revealed that the counties'
implementation of protocols and experiences varied greatly.
According to the Judicial Council Web site, only 18 of
California's 58 counties have elected to develop dual status
protocols. Because of the local flexibility, the dual status
jurisdictions have different operating protocols and may or may
not be comparable. Additionally, some of the counties that have
not opted to adopt dual status protocols are working on
independent projects to help dual status youth.
State Auditor findings. In June 2015, the Joint Legislative
Audit Committee directed the Bureau of State Audits, at the
request of the author of this bill, to determine whether
counties are addressing the needs of dual status youth. The
resulting report was issued in February 2016. However, because
the state has not issued guidelines to the counties on how to
track or identify dual status youth, the State Auditor was
unable to determine how county programs were performing.
Per the Auditor, "the State has not defined key terms or
established outcomes to track related to dually involved youth,
thus it cannot monitor the outcomes for this population
statewide. Furthermore, the state cannot perform a robust
comparison between the populations of youth involved in dual
status and nondual status counties." 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 not possible to say which
protocols, programs or services might be working to reduce
recidivism in these youth.
AB 1911
Page 7
The Auditor recommended that the Legislature require Judicial
Council to work with a variety specified of stakeholders to
develop common definitions and outcome measures. The Auditor
also recommended that CDSS, which operates the state case
management automation system for tracking youth in the child
welfare system (CWS/CMS), 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 on how to use that function and fully track those
youth. This bill generally implements the Auditor's
recommendations.
Technology
CDSS is in the process of replacing its automated CWS/CMS with a
new system, which it calls Child Welfare Services-New System.
The case management module, which would contain functionality
for tracking dual status youth, is projected to begin
development work in FY 2017/18 and to be completed by end of
2020.
As noted by the Auditor, there is no statewide automated system
for the probation departments. In fact, the Judicial Council
noted in its response to the audit that, "while there is a case
management system that collects data on a statewide basis for
the child welfare system, there is no comparable system for
juvenile justice data. The Legislature recently directed the
Board of State and Community Corrections to assemble a Juvenile
Justice Data Working Group, which submitted its final report and
recommendations to the Legislature earlier this year. That
report documents the lack of a statewide system and the
resultant problems in measuring recidivism or evaluating
different programs and processes in the juvenile justice system.
Given these shortcomings we would simply note that it may be
difficult for recommendations on dual status data collection to
be implemented by a council committee on a timely basis without
an effective statewide data system for collecting juvenile
justice-related data and outcomes."
AB 1911
Page 8
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.
AB 12 (Beall, Chapter 559, Statutes of 2010) authorized the
juvenile court to retain jurisdiction over a child who has been
adjudicated a dependent because of abuse or neglect until the
ward or dependent child attains the age of 21 years.
AB 129 (Cohn, Chapter 468, Statutes of 2004) authorized the
probation department and child welfare services department in
any county to create a protocol which would permit a minor who
meets specified criteria to be designated as both a dependent
child and ward of the juvenile court. The bill also required the
Judicial Council to collect and compile data, to evaluate the
results of implementing the protocol, and to report its findings
to the Legislature.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
Judicial Council: Potential costs of about $100,000 (General
Fund*) to chair and direct the activities of the committee,
including the development of a legislative report including
recommendations.
CDSS: Minor, absorbable costs (General Fund) to implement a
case management system function to identify dual status youth,
as this functionality is currently being incorporated into the
CWS-NS, which is projected for rollout within the timeframes
AB 1911
Page 9
specified in this measure. However, should the report to the
Legislature recommend an alternate or new technology system to
be used, costs to meet the case management system
functionality could be significant.
Report recommendations: Unknown, potential major future cost
pressure (General Fund) to facilitate and enhance
comprehensive data and outcome tracking by child welfare
services, probation departments, and potentially other
agencies, as recommended in the yet to be completed report.
SUPPORT: (Verified8/12/16)
The Children's Advocacy Institute (source)
Children Now
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/12/16)
Department of Finance
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 5/12/16
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker,
Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Calderon,
Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper,
Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines,
Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson,
Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger
Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder,
Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina,
Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen,
Patterson, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago,
Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber,
Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon
NO VOTE RECORDED: Burke, Jones-Sawyer
AB 1911
Page 10
Prepared by: Taryn Smith / HUMAN S. / (916) 651-1524
8/15/16 20:10:11
**** END ****