BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 68 (Liu)
Version: March 26, 2015
Hearing Date: April 7, 2015
Fiscal: Yes
Urgency: No
NR
SUBJECT
Minor parents: reunification services
DESCRIPTION
When a court orders the removal of a child from the custody of
his or her parent because of abuse or neglect the court is
generally required to order the return of the child to the
physical custody of his or her parent, unless the court finds
that the return of the child would create a substantial risk to
the physical or emotional well-being of the child. Existing law
further requires the court to order family reunification
services, to the child and the child's parent(s), unless
specified circumstances exist.
This bill would, instead, require the court to order
reunification services for a parent under a number of currently
optional circumstances if the parent was a minor at the time
when the facts that gave rise to the condition for the court to
deny reunification services occurred.
This bill would also require the court, in making its
determination regarding reunification, as specified, to take
into account the particular barriers to a minor parent, and
would authorize the court to continue the case for up to six
months for the provision of additional reunification services to
a minor parent if he or she is making significant and consistent
progress in establishing a safe home for the child's return, as
specified.
BACKGROUND
The United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in
the industrialized world, although this rate has been declining
since 1990, when it peaked at 12 percent of adolescent girls.
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Teenage girls in the dependency system are twice as likely to
become pregnant before turning 19 than teenage girls who are not
in foster care. The Guttmacher Institute argues that the
circumstances that led these girls to be placed in foster care
in the first place, along with the experience of being in foster
care, seem to make them particularly vulnerable. (Boonstra,
Heather D., Teen Pregnancy Among Young Women In Foster Care: A
Primer, Spring 2011, Volume 14, Number 2.0, Guttmacher Policy
Review.) Additionally, research has shown that adolescence is a
period of poor control over behavior and emotions, and teenagers
are likely to exhibit high levels of emotional arousal and
reactionary decision-making. (Tucker, Gargi, Decision-making is
Still a Work in Progress for Teenagers, March 2013, Brain
Connection.) Regarding parenting foster youth, the John Burton
foundation recently noted:
Parenting foster youth fall into the double cross-hairs of
foster care and teen parenthood. Educationally, they fall
far behind their peers, with a rate of high school
graduation 13 percent lower than non-parenting foster youth
and 25 percent lower than their non-foster youth peers. As
young, often single parents, two out of three will live at,
or below the poverty line in adulthood. Most troubling,
children of parenting foster youth are a full five times
more likely to be maltreated and placed into foster care
themselves. (Lemley, Amy; Moving Parenting Foster Youth Out
of the Shadows, March 13, 2013, The John Burton Foundation.)
The child welfare system seeks to ensure the safety and
protection of these children, and where possible, preserve and
strengthen families through visitation and family reunification.
Over the years, the Legislature has enacted a number of laws
which require the court to take into consideration specific
circumstances that present a barrier to family reunification
when trying to create a permanency plan for a child. AB 2070
(Bass, Ch. 482, Stats. 2008) required courts to assess, among
other factors, the particular barriers to accessing
court-mandated services for institutionalized and incarcerated
parents. Similarly, SB 977 (Liu, Ch. 219, Stats. 2014) required
the court to consider whether a child can be returned to the
custody of his or her parent in a certified substance abuse
treatment facility.
This bill seeks to address some of the particular barriers
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facing minor parents whose children are placed in foster care.
Accordingly, this bill would require the court to consider the
specific circumstances faced by a minor parent in trying to
avail him or herself to court-mandated services, and would
require the court to order reunification services in several
situations if the parent was a minor at the time when the facts
that gave rise to the condition for the court to deny
reunification services occurred. This bill would make other
conforming changes.
CHANGES TO EXISTING LAW
1.Existing law provides that a minor may be removed from the
physical custody of his or her parents and become a dependent
of the juvenile court for serious abuse or neglect, or risk of
serious abuse or neglect, as specified. (Welf. & Inst. Code
Sec. 300.)
Existing law provides that unless certain exceptions apply,
the primary objective of the juvenile dependency system is
reunification of the minor with his or her family, and the
court must order the social worker to provide services to
reunify children legally removed from a parent. (Fam. Code
Sec. 7950, Welf. & Inst. Code Secs. 202, 300.2, 361.5.)
Existing law does not require the court to order reunification
services in 16 situations, as specified, including:
the whereabouts of the parent are unknown;
the parent is suffering from a mental disability, as
specified;
the child or sibling of the child has previously entered
the dependency system due to physical or sexual abuse,
returned to the parent, and is being removed from the home
again because of physical or sexual abuse;
the parent caused the death of another child;
the child or sibling of the child has entered the
dependency system as a result of severe sexual or physical
abuse inflicted by the parent, as specified; and
that the child was conceived by means of sexual
intercourse with a child under the age of 14 years. (Welf.
& Inst. Code Sec. 361.5 (b).)
This bill would, instead, require the court to order
reunification services in four situations, if the parent was a
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minor at the time when the facts that gave rise to the
condition for the court to deny reunification services
occurred, including:
the parent of the child has a history of drug or alcohol
use, as specified, and has resisted prior court-ordered
treatment;
the parental rights of the parent over a sibling have
been permanently severed, as specified;
the court ordered termination of reunification services
for any siblings of the child because the parent failed to
reunify with the sibling, as specified; and
that the parent is not receiving reunification services
for a sibling because of severe abuse or neglect, as
specified.
1.Existing law provides that children and families in the child
welfare system should typically receive a full six months of
reunification services if the child is under three years of
age, and twelve months if the child is over three years of
age. (Welf. & Inst. Code Sec. 361.5.)
Existing law allows for court ordered services in pursuit of
family reunification to be extended from 12 to 18 or 24
months, as specified, for parents who are incarcerated,
institutionalized, or ordered into a resident substance abuse
program if the court makes particular findings. (Welf. & Inst.
Code Sec. 361.5(a)(3)-(4).)
Existing law requires the court to consider at several points
during the dependency hearings after removal of the child from
the home, and in certain circumstances the social worker to
document, the special circumstances of parents who are
incarcerated, institutionalized, detained, deported, or
court-ordered to residential substance abuse treatment,
including barriers to service access and to maintaining
contact with the child, and the parent's significant and
consistent progress in establishing a safe home for the
child's return. (Welf. & Inst. Code Secs. 366.21 and 366.22.)
Existing law allows any party to petition the court to
terminate reunification services any time prior to the
permanency hearing if it appears that new circumstances exist
that, had they previously existed would have led the court to
bypass or not order reunification services, or that the action
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or inaction of the parent or guardian has made reunification
impossible. (Welf. & Inst. Code Sec. 388.)
This bill would additionally require the court to consider the
special circumstances of a minor parent, including barriers to
service and to maintaining contact with the child, and would
authorize the court to continue the case for an additional six
months for the provision of additional reunification services
if the minor parent is making significant and consistent
progress toward establishing a safe home for the child.
COMMENT
1.Stated need for the bill:
According to the author:
Children of minor parents are at greater risk of permanently
losing their families because of barriers that impede
reunification. This bill requires the courts to recognize
these barriers, protect these families, and enhance the
reunification process for children and their minor parents,
giving them their greatest opportunity to succeed.
2.Ordering reunification services for parents who were a minor
at the time when the facts that gave rise to the condition for
the court to deny reunification services occurred
Under existing law there are 16 circumstances that the
Legislature has deemed so egregious that the court need not
order reunification services. (See Welf. & Inst. Code Sec.
361.5(b).) These exceptions to reunification demonstrate how the
dependency system's primary goals of ensuring the safety of
children and preservation of family are balanced. Thus, when a
child has been severely physically or sexually abused by a
parent, the court need not offer reunification services.
Another situation where reunification services may not be
ordered is where a child has entered the dependency system due
to physical or sexual abuse (caused by the parent or another
person because of the parent's negligence), and was returned
home after the provision of reunification services, only to be
abused again. Additionally, a parent whose whereabouts are
unknown or who is suffering from a mental disability that leaves
him or her incapable of caring for a child may not have
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reunification services ordered by the court.
As introduced, this bill would have required the court to order
reunification services in all 16 situations, if the parent was a
minor at the time when the facts that gave rise to the condition
for the court to deny reunification services occurred. However,
to address stakeholder concerns, the author recently amended the
bill to require the court to order reunification services in
only four of these situations. These include: (1) the parent of
the child has a history of drug or alcohol use, as specified,
and has resisted prior court-ordered treatment; (2) the parental
rights of the parent over a sibling have been permanently
severed and the court finds that the parent has not made
reasonable efforts to treat the problems that led to the removal
of the sibling; (3) the court ordered termination of
reunification services for any siblings of the child because the
parent failed to reunify with the sibling and the court finds
that the parent has not made reasonable efforts to treat the
problems that led to the removal of the sibling; and (4) that
the parent is not receiving reunification services for a sibling
because of severe abuse or neglect, as specified.
The Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers, sponsor, argues that the
bill's provisions requiring reunification necessarily recognize
that "teen parents upon reaching majority should be exempt from
certain reunification bypass provisions for later born children
based upon dependency proceedings begun when the parent was a
minor."
Minor parents, in particular, may have a difficult time
protecting children from abusive family members because she may
be a victim of similar abuse. The fact that a minor parent has
failed to reunify with her child should arguably not be a
barrier to reunification services she might otherwise have
access to for subsequent children later on in life. The
Executive Committee for the Family Law Section of the State Bar
(FLEXCOM), while supportive of the concept and appreciative of
the author's recent narrowing amendments, has expressed concern
that the bill's requirement to provide for reunification in
these four circumstances would deprive judges of the discretion
they need to protect children from abuse. FLEXCOM writes:
While limiting the number of 361.5 subparagraphs is a step in
the right direction, we would like to see the Welf. & Inst.
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Code Sec. 361.5(c)(4) amendment eliminated entirely. Even if
the facts necessary to establish the application of a
361.5(b) bypass is present, the court can still grant
reunification services under 361.5(c) upon a finding that
it's in the best interest of the child. We don't see the
necessity for mandating the provision of reunification
services without a best interest of the child finding, even
if it's in limited circumstances. The court's discretion in
these cases should be preserved.
Accordingly, the author may wish to continue to work with
FLEXCOM and other stakeholders to address concern regarding the
ability of the court to provide for the best interests of
children. As discussed below, there are two protections in
existing law that potentially provide courts with the tools and
discretion needed to protect these children from abuse.
a.A child need not be placed in a parent's custody during
reunification services
A good faith plan for reunifying the child with his or her
parents is required by statute and by due process. In
addition, the approach taken to reunify the child with his or
her family should not be mechanical; instead, a reunification
plan "must be appropriate for each family and be based on the
unique facts relating to that family." (In re Dino E. (1992) 6
Cal. 4th 1768, 1777.) An appropriate plan will contain time
frames and time limits that suit the circumstances. For
example, not every parent needs a full-time drug program, or
52 weeks of domestic violence classes, or a parenting class.
Visitation, however, is a vital component of reunification,
and must typically be provided if the child is placed in
foster care after the dispositional hearing and the court
provides the parent with reunification services. (In re
Alvin R. Jr. (2003) 108 Cal. 4th 962, 972.)
Accordingly, the fact that reunification services are ordered
does not necessarily mean that the child will ever be returned
to the custody of the offending parent. The court has
routinely emphasized that compliance with a reunification
services and the case plan is a different issue than the
child's best interest, which is always the court's primary
focus and what it looks to when determining whether to return
a child to the parent's custody. (See In re Jacob P. (2007)
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157 Cal. 4th 819; Constance K. v. Superior Court (1998) 61
Cal. 4th 689, 704; and Blanca P. v. Superior Court (1996) 45
Cal. 4th 1738, 1748.)
b.Any party, or the court, may seek termination of reunification
services
In general, the court is only obligated to order six months of
reunification services. If the child is not returned to the
parents by that six-month date, and the court cannot make the
significant findings required to continue reunification (e.g.,
the parent is not availing herself to the court-ordered
services, criminal history subsequent to the child's removal,
efforts and/or progress of parent to create stable home for
the child), the court can terminate reunification services at
six months and refer the matter for a permanent plan
implementation hearing. (Welf. & Inst. Code Sec. 361.5(a).)
Furthermore, any party, including a child who is a dependent
of the juvenile court, may petition the court to terminate
reunification services if it appears that a change of
circumstance or new evidence exists that justifies termination
of reunification services, or an action of the parent creates
a substantial likelihood that reunification will not occur.
(Welf. & Inst. Code Sec. 388(c).) Accordingly, if
reunification services are not improving the chances that the
parent will be able to create a safe home for the child, the
court or any party (i.e., the child, the parent, or the
county) may seek to terminate reunification services and start
the process of finding the child a new, safe home.
3.Requiring courts to consider barriers unique to minor parents
Similar to the considerations a court must take into account
when ordering reunification services for incarcerated,
institutionalized, deported, or detained parents, this bill
would require the court to consider the particular barriers of
the parent in accessing court-mandated reunification services
and her ability to maintain contact with her child. This bill
would also allow up to six additional months of reunification
services for minor parents who are making significant progress
in a court-ordered reunification plan. The National Association
of Social Workers, California Chapter, writes in support that
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"maintaining the family units of minor parents eliminates the
risk their children are exposed to and gives them a chance to
grow up in a secure environment."
The author writes that these provisions are necessary to address
the numerous hurdles minor parents face which "are distinct from
those encountered by adult parents and guardians. [They] must
navigate an already complicated legal process which presumes the
parent or legal guardian has ready access to court-ordered
treatment programs. [However, these] parents are enrolled in
school or pursuing other educational opportunities, which limits
their chances to effectively utilize parenting skills
enhancement programs. Minor parents also face substantial legal
barriers that prevent access to fulltime employment, appropriate
child care, transportation, and adequate housing."
In support, Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers, the sponsor of this
bill, writes, "teen parents should be treated at least in the
same manner which the State has recognized particular barriers
to reunification for incarcerated parents, immigrant parents,
and those in court-ordered residential substance abuse treatment
programs. As with these other classes of parents, teen parents,
who make consistent progress in establishing a safe home for
their children's return, should receive an additional six months
of reunification services in order for them to have a chance at
successful reunification with their children."
Support : National Association of Social Workers
Opposition : None Known
HISTORY
Source : Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers, Inc.
Related Pending Legislation : None known
Prior Legislation :
SB 977 (Liu, Chapter 219, Statutes of 2014) required social
workers to include in each social study, evaluation, and
supplemental report a factual discussion of whether a child can
be returned to the custody of his/her parent who is enrolled in
a certified substance abuse treatment facility, and required the
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court to consider whether a child can be returned to the custody
of his/her parent in these situations, as specified.
SB 1064 (De León, Chapter 845, Statutes of 2012) authorized the
court to extend the review hearing periods for reunification
following consideration of a parent's ability to comply with
court ordered services where a child has been removed from the
custody of a parent and the parent has been arrested and issued
an immigration hold, detained, or deported to his or her country
of origin.
AB 2070 (Bass, Chapter 482, Statutes of 2008) required that
courts take into consideration, among other factors, the
particular barriers to accessing court-mandated services for
institutionalized and incarcerated parents.
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