BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Elaine K. Alquist, Chair
BILL NO: SB 1570
S
AUTHOR: Alquist
B
VERSION: March 27, 2006
HEARING DATE: March 28, 2006
1
FISCAL: Senate Judiciary
5
7
CONSULTANT:
0
Sue North
SUBJECT
Foster Care: Group Homes
SUMMARY
This bill would require the Health and Human Services
Agency develop a plan by July 1, 2008 to transform the
system of group home care for foster children and for
children with serious emotional disorders in residential
care.
ABSTRACT
Existing law provides for the Department of Social Services
(DSS) to manage child welfare services, community care
licensing standards and rate setting for out-of-home care
for children in California. The ongoing responsibility for
all children in out-of-home care, such as those with
serious emotional disorders, is often shared with other
state agencies. This bill focuses the development of a
plan to reform group home care on the Health and Human
Services Agency, the state agency responsible for
interagency collaboration and cooperation.
Continued---
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FISCAL IMPACT
Unknown; the bill as introduced carried a $1 million
appropriation which was recently amended out of the bill.
Implementation of the bill will be dependent upon actions
in the budget.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
Current Foster Homes and Funding
Foster care group homes serve an average monthly caseload
of approximately 12,000 children, consisting of 7,000
abused/neglected foster children placing by county child
welfare agencies, 4,000 delinquent foster children placed
by county probation departments, and 1,000 seriously
emotionally disturbed (SED) children placed in out-of-home
care through their Individualized Education Program (IEP)
under AB 3632.*
There are approximately 650 group home programs operated by
private nonprofit agencies receiving funding under the
AFDC-Foster Care program to provide care and supervision
and social work services to these children. The programs
are operated at approximately 1,500 licensed facilities
with a total licensed capacity of approximately 14,000
beds.
It is estimated that the total costs in 2006-07 for group
home placements in the AFDC-Foster Care program, including
the AB 3632 SED placements, will be approximately $782
million ($192 million in federal funds, $236 million in
State funds, and $354 million in county funds). The
AFDC-Foster Care rates schedule ranges from $1,454 per
month for the lowest level of care at Rate Classification
Level (RCL) 1 to $6,371 per month for the highest level of
care at RCL 14. The average AFDC-Foster Care group home
payment is approximately $4,975 per month.
Foster Care Policy Reform Efforts
Over the past three decades there have been a major reform
efforts in child welfare and foster care. In the late
1970s the Congress passed major reform legislation aimed at
forcing timetables and decisions to occur much sooner in
the course of a child's placement out of their home in the
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foster care system. The current system of foster care
places emphasis on decision making by the juvenile court
relative to six month increments regarding family
reunification, termination of parental rights, adoption
and/or permanency planning.
Over the past thirty years legislative efforts focused on
creating models for family unification and preventing
family disintegration when possible. Today many counties
orient their "interventions" towards a preventive model and
even include dependency court supervision for some families
where children are not removed from the home but are
considered at high risk for neglect or abuse. New programs
and policy standards for child protective and child welfare
workers family reunification when possible or emphasize
first choice placement of children with relatives or
extended family. This policy direction has been successful
in reducing unnecessary long term out-of-home placement of
children in more "institutional settings" like group homes.
Most of the policy innovations have been effective in
addressing less dysfunctional family circumstances, working
best with fewer children in a family unit at younger ages
where the children themselves more often have been
neglected rather than abused. More severe cases at the
rate of about 12,000 per month still find their way into
group homes in the foster care system.
The Need for the Bill:
The current group home system in California costs approach
$800 million per year, supports an average of 12,000
children and youth at an average cost of $5000 per month
per child. The last major legislation focused on group
homes in the foster care system was SB 933 Thompson
(Ch.311, Statutes of 1998). However, that bill was borne
of a scandal in the author's district and focused mainly
reducing out-of-state placement, 'cleaning up' a complex
set of governance and administrative issues and imposing
clear background check policies for all employees.
In the past few years legislation has been enacted designed
to push the foster care out-of-home system to adapt itself
to become more "normalized" settings, with new emphasis on
identifying and changing more stigmatizing licensing rules
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and regulations which today make day-to-day living so
difficult for many children and teens in foster homes and
group homes. More attention is also been paid to
emancipating foster youth who are unprepared for
independent living after years of living in group homes.
One of the many reasons why youth emerge from the group
home system unable to transition successfully into
adulthood stems from the state's own policies about the
role and function of group homes. Group homes are the
placement of last resort in the current foster care system,
where placement is determined by the level of supervision
and treatment needed to manage the child's behavior. It is
NOT designed to achieve specific outcomes. According to
the sponsor, "The current AFDC-Foster Care program neither
authorizes nor funds group homes to provide services that
may be needed by families to achieve reunification, or,
when reunification is not possible, to prepare/support
relatives or another family willing to provide a permanent
home. As a result, many foster children remain in group
homes longer than would otherwise be necessary, or they are
discharged to another foster care setting without achieving
a stable and permanent family living situation."
SB 1570 requires the development of a reform implementation
plan, to be submitted to the Legislature by July 1, 2008
which would be designed to transform California's current
system of foster care group homes into a system of
"residentially-based services" designed to expedite
placement in a more permanent family setting. The bill
defines:
the role of group care in California's child
welfare, juvenile justice, and mental health systems;
the range of services they are to provide;
the outcomes they are to achieve for their
children; and
how they are to be paid for these services.
The goal of system reform is to improve outcomes for foster
children by enhancing the quality and scope of care and
services provided with the specific objective of expediting
a permanent family placement. The bill would transform
group homes from structured often long-term living
environments for children who have experienced multiple
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failed placements in foster family homes into intensive
interventions tasked with returning children to their own
homes or to another permanent and stable family setting in
as short a time possible.
Comments:
The language of the proposed reform reflective in SB 1570
is the product of a series of stakeholder group meetings
which produced a document called a "Framework for
Residentially-Based Services." The bill calls for counties
and private providers to develop and test models on a pilot
basis. Since California has a number of private
philanthropic foundations who have already invested
substantial grant funds in foster care, should the bill be
amended include their involvement when possible and
appropriate?
POSITIONS
Support: California Alliance of Child and Family
Services (Sponsor)
County Welfare Directors Association
LeRoy Haynes Center
Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services
California Permanency for Youth Project
Rebekah Children's Services
Vista Del Mar
Optimist Youth Home and Family Services
Sunny Hills Services
Five Acres
Regional Youth Services/ North Valley School
Advent Group Ministries
Sacramento Children's Home
Oppose: None received
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