BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1412
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Date of Hearing: April 12, 2005
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Noreen Evans, Chair
AB 1412 (Leno) - As Amended: April 7, 2005
SUBJECT : Foster Youth.
SUMMARY : Requires county child welfare workers to ask every
child in foster care who is 10 years of age or older and who has
been in an out of home placement for six or months or longer,
about important adult relationships and to make efforts to
support those relationships. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires a court to determine whether the agency has made
reasonable efforts to maintain the child's relationships with
individuals other than the child's siblings who are important
to the child consistent with the child's best interests.
2)Specifies that every foster child has the right to be involved
in the development of his or her case plan.
3)Allows 12-year-old foster children to review their own case
plan.
4)Includes the foster child as part of a team working on their
case plan.
5)Requires that a child's case plan include an investigation
into and statement of the child's wishes regarding their
permanent placement plan.
6)Seeks to ensure that children and youth are actively involved
in the case plan and permanency planning process.
7)Makes various findings and declarations regarding the value
and necessity of a case plan for each foster child.
EXISTING LAW
1)Requires county child welfare workers to ask every child 10
years of age or older who has been placed in a group home for
six or months or longer, about important adult relationships
and to make efforts to support those relationships.
AB 1412
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2)Requires a court to determine whether the agency has made
reasonable efforts to maintain the identified relationships of
a child 10 years of age or older, living in a group home for
six months or more, with individuals other that the child's
siblings who are important to the child consistent with the
child's best interests.
3)Allows a foster child to review his or her own case plan if he
or she is over 12 years of age
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown; imposes costs to counties subject to
reimbursement by the state.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "(t)here is a pervasive
myth that no one wants to adopt or form a lifelong commitment
with older children. This myth permeates social work practices,
dependency court practices and is accepted by the general
public. In California, social workers often focus permanency
efforts on younger children even though over half of the
children in foster care are over the age of 11 and will remain
in foster care for the majority of their childhood."
This measure expands on AB 408 (Steinberg) Chapter 813, Statutes
of 2003, which provided foster youth aged 10 and older living in
group homes the opportunity to identify and benefit from
appropriate adult relationships. AB 408 made ground-breaking
changes in dependency law to help achieve permanency for older
foster youth. Among other important changes, state law now
allows a minor 10 years of age to be notified of their own
juvenile court hearing; and to participate in age-appropriate
extracurricular enrichment and social activities.
AB 408 shifted the traditional assumption that foster youth over
10 were not adoptable and that foster youth should not be
directly involved in their own case planning. The bill also
required the state to encourage the development of approaches to
ensure that no child leaves foster care without a lifelong
connection to a committed adult and requires social workers to
be trained to assist in identifying and maintaining child
relationships with important individuals.
Other measures, AB 2651 (Chu) passed by the Legislature but
vetoed in 2002, and SB 1639 (Alarcon) Chapter 668, Statutes of
2004, outlined and improved on a foster care bill of rights
ensuring that all youth in foster care live in a safe home, are
AB 1412
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free from sexual abuse and may contact their siblings unless
they are prohibited by the court order.
The County Welfare Director's Association of California (CWDA)
agrees that relationships between foster youth and adults other
than their parents or caregivers can be "meaningful." However
they are concerned about the lack of funding for the increased
activities that will be required of county child welfare
programs.
This bill also raises the question of the developmentally
appropriate age for children to review their own case plan. For
example, is a 12 year old able to react to information that
their parent sexually abused a sibling? Is this information
something that will increase the child's safety or detract from
efforts to reunify the family.
DOUBLE REFERRAL . This bill has been double-referred. Should
this bill pass out of this committee, it will be referred to the
Assembly Judiciary Committee.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Youth Connection (SPONSOR)
California Alliance of Child and Family Services
National Center for Youth Law
CWDA (support if amended)
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Caitlin O'Halloran / HUM. S. / (916)
319-2089