BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1060
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SENATE THIRD READING
SB
1060 (Leno)
As Amended August 1, 2016
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE: 31-7
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|Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Judiciary |9-0 |Mark Stone, Wagner, | |
| | |Alejo, Chau, Chiu, | |
| | |Gallagher, Holden, | |
| | |Maienschein, Ting | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Human Services |7-0 |Bonilla, Grove, | |
| | |Arambula, Lopez, | |
| | |Maienschein, | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | |Mark Stone, Thurmond | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Appropriations |20-0 |Gonzalez, Bigelow, | |
| | |Bloom, Bonilla, | |
| | |Bonta, Calderon, | |
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| | |Chang, Daly, Eggman, | |
| | |Gallagher, Eduardo | |
| | |Garcia, Holden, | |
| | |Jones, Obernolte, | |
| | |Quirk, Santiago, | |
| | |Wagner, Weber, Wood, | |
| | |McCarty | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Requires a court, in an adoption proceeding for a
dependent child to inquire into the status of the development of
a voluntary postadoptive sibling contact agreement before the
adoption is finalized. Specifically, this bill:
1) Makes legislative findings and declarations regarding the
benefit of continuing contact between some adoptive children
and their siblings and the importance of postadoption contact
agreements, which can be beneficial to adoptive children
under certain circumstances.
2) States that nothing in the adoption laws of this state shall
be construed to prevent the adopting parent or parents of a
child from entering into a voluntary agreement with the
child's birth relatives, including any siblings of the child,
to permit continuing contact between the child and the birth
relatives, including any siblings if the agreement is found
by the court to have been executed voluntarily and to be in
the best interests of the child at the time the adoption
petition is granted.
3) Requires that any court order permanently placing the minor
shall include a specification of the nature and frequency of
visiting arrangements with the sibling.
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4) Requires a court, at its first review conducted for a child
for whom the court has ordered parental rights terminated and
who has been ordered placed for adoption, to inquire into the
status of the development of a voluntary postadoption sibling
contact agreement.
5) Requires, to the extent practicable, the county placing
agency to convene a meeting with the child, the sibling or
siblings of the child, the prospective adoptive parent or
parents, and a facilitator for the purpose of deciding
whether to voluntarily execute a postadoption sibling contact
agreement on a date after termination of parental rights and
prior to finalization of the adoption.
6) Allows the agency to comply with the requirement in 5)
above, by allowing a nonprofit organization authorized to
provide permanency placement and postadoption mediation for
adoptive and birth families to facilitate the meeting and
develop the agreement.
7) Provides that the county placing agency is not required to
convene a meeting to decide whether to voluntarily execute a
postadoption sibling contact agreement in one of the
following two circumstances: a) If the agency determines
that such a meeting or postadoption sibling contact agreement
would be contrary to the safety and well-being of the child,
or b) The child requests that a meeting does not occur.
8) Allows the child to petition the court for an order
requiring the county placing agency to convene a meeting and
provides that if the court determines by a preponderence of
the evidence that a postadoption sibling contact agreement or
a meeting for the purpose of deciding whether to voluntarily
execute such an agreement is contrary to the safety and
well-being of the child, the reasons for the determination
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shall be noted in the court order, and the meeting is not
required to occur.
9) Clarifies that no child, sibling, or other party is required
to attend a meeting to decide whether to voluntarily execute
a postadoption sibling contact agreement pursuant to Family
Code Section 8616.5 and that a county placing agency may
convene a meeting if not all of the parties are secured to
attend.
10)Requires counsel to the child and counsel to the siblings
who are dependents of the court to be notified of, and may
attend, both the meeting and the hearing described above.
11)Clarifies that after the adoption petition has been granted
by the court, the adoption cannot be set aside due to the
failure to comply with a postadoption sibling contact
agreement.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)Minor state costs (General Fund* (GF)) for potential
additional meetings to determine whether to execute
postadoption sibling contact agreements.
2)Unknown, but potentially significant state costs (GF*) for
local agencies to facilitate additional sibling visits for
dependent siblings of adopted minors resulting from
postadoptive sibling contact agreements. Annual costs would
be dependent on the number of adopted children with dependent
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siblings for which postadoptive sibling contact agreements
will be ordered, the frequency of visits provided for in the
agreements, and the time involved for the social worker to
provide for this sibling visitation in each case (distance and
duration), among other factors.
3)Minor workload impact and potentially future cost savings to
the extent the child and family team (CFT) meetings result in
less time spent during the court hearing on sibling visitation
issues.
Proposition 30*: Exempts the State from mandate reimbursement
for realigned responsibilities for "public safety services"
including the provision of child welfare services. However,
legislation enacted after September 30, 2012, that has an
overall effect of increasing the costs already borne by a local
agency for public safety services apply to local agencies only
to the extent that the State provides annual funding for the
cost increase. The provisions of Proposition 30 have not been
interpreted through the formal court process to date, however,
to the extent the local agency costs resulting from this measure
are determined to be applicable under the provisions of
Proposition 30 could result in additional costs to the State.
COMMENTS: In 2008, Congress passed the Fostering Connections to
Success and Increasing Adoptions Act (Act), which, among other
things, made it a priority that siblings entering the foster
care system be placed together by requiring states to use
"reasonable efforts" to place siblings together, unless such
placement is contrary to their safety or well-being. If the
siblings are not placed together, the Act requires that
visitation between them must occur frequently, unless the
visitation is contrary to their safety or well-being.
Prior to passage of the Act, California was one of the first
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states to pass legislation promoting sibling visitation for
foster children as early as 1999. (See AB 740 (Steinberg),
Chapter 805, Statutes of 1999.) Since then California has
enacted several additional statutes to expand legal protections
for sibling relationships. These laws have served to promote
sibling relationships when both children are in the dependency
system, but recent, unpublished cases indicate that courts will
not grant visitation in the rare case where one sibling is in
the foster system and the other remains in the legal custody of
the parent.
California Law has Long Recognized the Importance of Maintaining
Sibling Relationships, but California's Foster Care System
Continues to Separate Siblings in Too Many Cases. California
law has repeatedly recognized the importance of maintaining and
developing sibling relationships for children in foster care.
Key legislation in this area includes AB 743 (Portantino),
Chapter 560, Statutes of 2010, which required greater notice if
siblings are to be separated; AB 705 (Steinberg), Chapter 747,
Statutes of 2001, which ensured that sibling relationships are
considered at all appropriate hearings and siblings are placed
together when appropriate; AB 1987 (Steinberg), Chapter 909,
Statutes of 2000, which recognized the importance of sibling
relationships and required the court to consider the existence,
nature and impact of a dependent child's sibling relationships
on the child's placement and planning for legal permanence; and
AB 740 (Steinberg), Chapter 805, Statutes of 1999, which
expedited the procedure for permanent placement of a sibling
group.
Nevertheless, recent data reveal that children in foster care
are often not placed with all their siblings. Foster children
in California are placed together with all their siblings in
only slightly over half of all cases. Slightly older data
reveal that in only about 29% of cases, foster youth have been
separated from all of their siblings. (Legislative Analyst's
Office, Protecting Children From Abuse and Neglect: Trends and
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Issues 29 (Aug. 2013); B. Needell et al., Child Welfare Services
Reports for California (2008).)
This Bill Seeks to Further Ensure that Courts Protect a Foster
Child's Relationship With His or Her Siblings, Including After
the Child is Adopted. When siblings are not or cannot be placed
together, existing law requires visitation between a foster
child and any siblings, unless the court finds by clear and
convincing evidence that sibling interaction is contrary to the
safety and well-being of either child. Finally, existing law
allows a court to include in a final adoption order a
postadoptive sibling contact agreement.
This bill requires a county placing agency, to the extent
practicable, to convene a meeting with the child, the sibling or
siblings of the child, the prospective adoptive parent or
parents, and a facilitator for the purpose of deciding whether
to voluntarily execute a postadoption sibling contact agreement
on a date after termination of parental rights and prior to
finalization of the adoption. Recent amendments also do the
following:
1)Specify that any hearing must take place at the first review
conducted for a child for whom the court has ordered parental
rights terminated and who has been ordered placed for
adoption.
2)Allow the county placing agency to delegate the responsibility
for convening a meeting to a nonprofit organization authorized
to provide permanency placement and postadoption mediation for
adoptive and birth families to facilitate the meeting and
develop the agreement.
3)Specify that the county placing agency is not required to
convene a meeting to decide whether to voluntarily execute a
postadoption sibling contact agreement pursuant to Family Code
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Section 8616.5 for two specific reasons: a) The county
placing agency determines that a meeting or a postadoption
sibling contact agreement would be contrary to the safety and
well-being of the child, or b) The child requests that a
meeting does not occur.
4)Allow the child to petition the court for an order requiring
the county placing agency to convene a meeting to decide
whether to voluntarily execute a postadoption sibling contact
agreement pursuant to Family Code Section 8616.5.
5)Require counsel to the child and counsel to the siblings who
are dependents of the court to be notified of, and allows them
to attend, both the meeting and the hearing.
6)Provide that no child, sibling, or other party is required to
attend a meeting to decide whether to voluntarily execute a
postadoption sibling contact agreement pursuant to Family Code
Section 8616.5.
These new provisions will help ensure that sibling interaction
and contact, and the agreements to facilitate such
relationships, occur when appropriate. By specifying the two
reasons why a county agency is not required to convene a
meeting, the bill as proposed to be amended implies that a
county placing agency is required to convene a meeting except in
the case of one or both of those circumstances. This amendment
significantly furthers the purpose of this bill and ensures that
the mechanism to further that purpose, the meeting for the
purpose of deciding whether to voluntarily execute a
postadoption sibling contact agreement, is likely to occur in
appropriate circumstances (and not in circumstances where a
meeting would be inappropriate, such as when a child objects to
it).
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Analysis Prepared by:
Alison Merrilees / JUD. / (916) 319-2334 FN:
0003989