BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2767|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 2767
Author: Lopez (D)
Amended: 6/16/16 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE: 4-0, 6/14/16
AYES: McGuire, Hancock, Liu, Nguyen
NO VOTE RECORDED: Berryhill
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 5/5/16 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT: Foster care: caregivers: information
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill adds to existing information that must be
provided to a foster caregiver the email address of the child's
social worker, the social worker's supervisor, the child's
attorney, and the court-appointed special advocate, if
applicable.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Establishes a system of juvenile dependency 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. (WIC 300, et seq.)
2)Requires the status of every dependent child in foster care to
be reviewed no less often than once every six months, and for
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the court to consider the continuing necessity for placement,
whether the placement is appropriate and other factors. (WIC
366)
3)Makes legislative findings and declarations about the
disproportionately high number of children in California in
foster care and the percent of those children living with
relatives, based on data from 2002. (WIC 16010.4)
4)Makes legislative findings and declarations that foster
children's caregivers should have certain basic information to
provide for the children placed in their care, including:
a) The name, mailing address, telephone number, and
facsimile number of the child's social worker and the
social worker's supervisor.
b) The name, mailing address, telephone number, and
facsimile number of the child's attorney and
court-appointed special advocate (CASA), if any.
c) The name, address, and department number of the juvenile
court in which the child's juvenile court case is pending.
d) The case number assigned to the child's juvenile court
case.
e) A copy of the child's birth certificate, passport, or
other identifying documentation of age as may be required
for enrollment in school and extracurricular activities.
f) The child's state Department of Social Services
identification number.
g) The child's Medi-Cal identification number or group
health insurance plan number.
h) Medications or treatments in effect for the child at the
time of placement, and instructions for their use.
i) A plan outlining the child's needs and services,
including information on family and sibling visitation.
(WIC 16010.4 (e))
This bill:
1)Replaces statistics from 2002 with statistic from 2014,
stating legislative findings that California is home to
roughly 60,000 children in foster care and that while the
state has 12 percent of the nation's population, it guards
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over 15 percent of the nation's children in the foster care
system.
2)Updates data in legislative findings to indicate that 33
percent of foster children live with relatives, as of 2014.
3)Adds that caregivers should have the email address of the
child's social worker and social worker's supervisor to the
declaration about other contact information that should be
provided to caregivers.
4)Adds that caregivers should have the email address of the
child's attorney and court-appointed special advocate (CASA),
if any, to the declaration about other contact information
that should be provided.
Background
California's county-based child welfare system is intended to
protect children at risk of child abuse and neglect or
exploitation by providing intensive services to families to
allow children to remain in their homes, or by arranging
temporary or permanent placement of the child in the safest and
least restrictive environment possible. Approximately 62,000
children and youth in California are in foster care or roughly 1
in 7 foster children nationwide.
The rate of first entries into foster care has increased
slightly, from 2.6 per 1,000 children and youth in 2011 to 2.8
in 2014 ("Foster Care in California," Kidsdata.org, February
2016). In California, 84 percent of children who entered foster
care for the first time in 2012 to 2014 were removed from their
families due to neglect, 8 percent due to physical abuse, and 2
percent due to sexual abuse, according to data released by
Kidscount.org. For children who entered care in the first half
of 2013, 35 percent were reunified with their families and 62
percent were in foster care one year later. The median length of
time California children spent in foster care declined between
2001 and 2009 from 17 to 13 months, but then rose to 15 months
in 2012.
Caseloads
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Social worker caseloads have been an issue of concern for more
than a decade. Heavy caseloads and workloads were cited as key
reasons nationwide that workers leave the child welfare
workforce in a General Accounting Office report in 2003, and by
other researchers in 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2009. ("Caseload and
Workload Management," US Department of Health and Human
Services, Child Welfare Information Gateway, Issue brief April
2010, p. 2)
Additionally heavy caseloads were identified as having a
negative impact on the timeliness, continuity and quality of
services provided by an agency in separate studies conducted in
2005, 2006 and 2007. Among the recommended strategies to ease
caseworker workload were mobile devices to allow caseworkers in
the field access to email and other workplace tools.
Email
Since the original legislation requiring contact information be
given to caregivers was passed in 2003, email has become an
increasingly common method of communication. According to a 2013
research article in Knowledge and Process magazine (Franssila,
Helja, "Mobile Email as a Business and Personal Performance
Driver in Everyday Knowledge Work - A Multi-method Case Study,"
Knowledge and Process Management, Volume 20, Number 4, pp
185-198, 2013.) users of mobile email express strong dependence
on that form of communication. "Despite the rise of instant
messaging, video conferencing, micro-blogging and variety
digital collaboration platforms, email is still the major
digital communication and collaboration tool in work settings,"
the authors found.
Related/Prior Legislation
SB 591 (Scott, Chapter 812, Statutes of 2003) declared
legislative intent to provide caregivers with information about
a child's social worker and other information, among enacting
other foster care reforms.
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FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:NoLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified 6/15/16)
None received
OPPOSITION: (Verified 6/15/16)
None received
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: Legislative declarations codified in
Welfare and Institutions Code state that caregivers be provided
with the name mailing address, telephone number and fax number
of the child's social worker, social worker supervisor, the
child's attorney and CASA, if the child has one. However, the
author states, "given that much of today's business is conducted
with the assistance of email, it is only fitting that email
addresses be added to the list of contact information. ? Not
only is email a more functional form of communication, but it
has become more accessible through many modes, such as
cellphones."
The author also states that it is important for caregivers to be
able to effectively and immediately contact those professionals
who have access to the child's case information, copies of
important documents and other critical information.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 5/5/16
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker,
Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke,
Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley,
Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier,
Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson,
Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger
Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey,
Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes,
McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte,
O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez,
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Page 6
Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting,
Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon
NO VOTE RECORDED: Beth Gaines
Prepared by:Mareva Brown / HUMAN S. / (916) 651-1524
6/30/16 9:16:16
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