BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 524 (Lara) - Private residential care facilities for youth
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|Version: May 5, 2015 |Policy Vote: HUMAN S. 4 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
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|Hearing Date: May 18, 2015 |Consultant: Jolie Onodera |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 524 would establish the new community care
licensure category of "private residential care facility for
youth," to be licensed and regulated by the Department of Social
Services (DSS), to regulate the operation of private residential
facilities and programs focused on serving youth with emotional,
behavioral, or mental health issues, as specified.
Fiscal
Impact:
One-time costs potentially in excess of $250,000 (General
Fund) to develop two sets of regulations for the new licensure
category, for the establishment of the new regulatory category
as well as for the training plan requirements for these
programs.
Potentially significant ongoing costs in excess of $500,000
(General Fund) to the DSS Community Care Licensing (CCL)
Division to license, monitor, and inspect additional
facilities, to be offset by the authority to charge both
SB 524 (Lara) Page 1 of
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application and regulatory fees. Ongoing costs would be
dependent on the number of entities impacted statewide, which
is unknown. To the extent the number of new licensees is
significant would require additional field staff for
monitoring and oversight.
Potential non-reimbursable local enforcement costs, offset to
a degree by fine revenue to the extent licensing and
regulatory violations are enforced and prosecuted.
Background: Current law establishes various licensing and regulation
requirements for child day care facilities under the California
Child Day Care Facilities Act. Under existing law, numerous
programs are exempt from child care licensing statutes,
including but not limited to: health facilities, clinics, school
dormitory or similar facilities, as specified, public recreation
programs, extended day care programs operated by public/private
schools, any alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment
facility, as defined, facilities conducted by and for the
adherents of any well-recognized church or religious
denomination for the purpose of providing facilities for the
care or treatment of the sick who depend on prayer or spiritual
means for healing in the practice of the religion of the church
or denomination, child care programs operating under specified
time restrictions, and juvenile programs administered by the
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), as
specified. (Health and Safety Code § 1505.)
Treatment programs for troubled youth, commonly referred to as
youth "boot camps," wilderness therapy programs, therapeutic
boarding schools, or behavior modification programs, have been
the subject of controversy within California and nationwide for
several years. These non-traditional treatment programs are
intended to provide less restrictive options for children with
significant behavioral issues and provide a range of services,
including drug and alcohol treatment, military-style discipline,
and psychological counseling. A 2007 Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report, "Residential Treatment Programs: Concerns
Regarding Abuse and Death in Certain Programs for Troubled
Youth," identified thousands of allegations of abuse, some of
which involved death, at such programs. The GAO report noted no
single federal agency regulating such programs, and a variety of
approaches ranging from statutory regulations that require
licensing to no oversight at the state level.
SB 524 (Lara) Page 2 of
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"?while states often regulate publicly funded
programs, a number of states do not license or
otherwise regulate private programs. Because programs
determine how to describe themselves, especially in
their marketing materials, there is no standard
definition for 'wilderness therapy program,' 'boot
camp,' or other terms used to describe the types of
programs and facilities considered to be part of this
industry." (GAO, Residential Treatment Programs,
2007, p. 3)
A subsequent GAO report entitled, "Residential Facilities: State
and Federal Oversight Gaps May Increase Risk to Youth Well-Being
(April 2008)," noted:
All states have processes in place to license and
monitor certain residential facilities, but our
survey identified several gaps that allow some of the
common causes of youth maltreatment and death to go
unaddressed. These gaps include the fact that some
types of government and private facilities are exempt
from licensing requirements, licensing standards do
not always address the primary causes of youth
maltreatment and death, and state agencies
inconsistently monitor and enforce facility
compliance and share their monitoring results. (p. 8)
One reason that private residential facilities may be
exempt from licensing requirements is that state
agencies do not have the necessary statutory or
regulatory authority. Regarding residential schools
and academies, for example, all agencies in 15 of the
33 states that responded to all three agency surveys
reported that they did not have either the authority
or the regulatory responsibility to license these
facilities. The lack of licensing for all facilities
serving youth has several consequences, in that there
are no commonly accepted definitions of facility
types. Within individual states, facility operators
may bypass state licensing requirements by
self-identifying their business as a type that is
exempt from state licensing. In Texas, for example, a
residential program self-identified as a private
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boarding school is not regulated by the state
licensing agency, but the same facility would require
a license if it self-identified as a residential
treatment center or therapeutic camp. Inconsistent
licensing practices across states can have
implications as well. For example, a 2007 directory
showed that Utah, which only recently implemented
licensing requirements covering wilderness camps, was
home to over 25 percent of registered wilderness
programs in the United States. Facility licensing is
also important because parents and others considering
placing youth in private facilities at their own
expense do not always have the information they need
to screen facilities and make an informed decision.
(p. 9)
Proposed Law:
This bill would create the new licensure category of "private
residential care facility for youth," as follows:
Defines "private residential care facility for youth,"
as any 24-hour residential facility or program operated by
a private entity providing nonmedical care, counseling,
educational or vocational support to persons from 12 to 18
years of age with social, emotional, behavioral, or mental
health issues or disorders, including a program that
provides any of the following:
o A program with wilderness or outdoor
experience, expedition, or intervention.
o A boot camp experience or other experience
designed to simulate characteristics of basic military
training or correctional regimes.
o A therapeutic boarding school.
o A behavior modification program.
Prohibits a person, firm, partnership, association,
organization, corporation, or other entity from operating,
establishing, managing, conducting, or maintaining a
private residential care facility for youth, unless the
facility is licensed by DSS.
Requires DSS to license and inspect a private
residential care facility for youth as a community care
facility. Specifies that a license is not transferable.
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Prohibits DSS from licensing a private residential care
facility for youth unless all therapeutic components of the
programs provided at the facility are licensed by the
appropriate agency or department.
Requires any person desiring issuance of a license for a
private residential care facility for youth under this
chapter to file an application on forms furnished by the
DSS to include specified information.
Authorizes DSS to charge an application fee, adjusted by
capacity, for the issuance of a license to operate a
private residential care facility for youth, in an amount
not to exceed the costs reasonably borne by the DSS in
licensing these facilities.
Authorizes DSS to charge a regulatory fee on each annual
anniversary of the effective date of the license, in an
amount not to exceed the costs reasonably borne by the DSS
in regulating these facilities.
Provides that fee moneys collected shall be available to
the DSS, upon appropriation of the Legislature, solely for
the purposes of this bill's provisions.
Requires staff members of a private residential care
facility for youth who supervise residents to receive
appropriate training consisting of 10 hours within the
first four weeks of employment and eight hours annually
thereafter.
Requires a facility to submit its training plan to DSS
and to implement the training plan only after DSS has
approved the plan. Requires the DSS to adopt regulations
that establish additional subject matter required to be
included in this training.
Provides that a private residential care facility for
youth shall not accept for residential placement a child
younger than 12 years of age.
Requires a licensee of a private residential care
facility for youth that advertises or promotes special
care, programming, or environments for persons with a
mental health, emotional, or social challenge, to provide
each prospective resident and his or her parent or guardian
an accurate narrative description of these programs and
services. Requires the facility to provide the description
in writing prior to admitting the prospective resident.
Makes conforming changes in existing law to specify
these facilities are no longer exempt from licensure.
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Related
Legislation: SB 1089 (Liu) 2012 would have defined "private
nontraditional alternative treatment facility for youth" as any
residential or nonresidential facility or program operated by an
organization that provides aggressive nontraditional punitive,
retaliatory, aversive, or military style behavioral treatment or
intervention services for youth, and prohibits their use in
California without accreditation by specific entities. This bill
was held on the Suspense File of the Assembly Committee on
Appropriations.
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