BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1852
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Date of Hearing: March 23, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Jim Beall, Jr., Chair
AB 1852 (Portantino) - As Introduced: February 12, 2010
SUBJECT : Dependent children: locating extended family members
SUMMARY : Provides courts with oversight in efforts to find and
form permanent connections with relatives of foster children and
requires training for social workers to fulfill these
responsibilities. Specifically, this bill :
1) Requires the juvenile court to receive and consider
information regarding social workers' efforts to locate and
connect foster children with relative and nonrelative
extended family members (NREFM) at the disposition hearing.
2) Includes social workers who perform activities related
to locating and establishing permanent connections with
extended family members to the groups of child welfare
services personnel who receive practice-relevant training
in child welfare services.
EXISTING LAW
1) Provides that a juvenile court may order removal from
the home of a parent or guardian and placement of a child
in foster care due to abuse or neglect. Welfare and
Institutions Code (WIC) 300.
2) Requires a social worker to begin an investigation to
locate and identify grandparents and other adult relatives
of a child within 30 days of a child's placement in foster
care. WIC 309 (e).
3) Requires social workers to exercise due diligence in
their attempts to identify and locate relatives, including
asking the foster child in an age appropriate manner about
relatives of importance to them. WIC 309 (e).
4) Provides a process to allow capable and willing
relatives to seek placement of a foster child pending the
detention hearing.
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5) Requires practice-relevant training for certain social
workers engaged in family reunification, family
maintenance, emergency response, and referrals of child
abuse and neglect. WIC 16206.
6) Specifies that practice-relevant training shall include
training in crisis intervention, indicators of abuse and
neglect, case management, legal duties of social workers
and laws governing child abuse reporting, as well as the
use of community services, among other issues. WIC 16206.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
Related Legislation: The federal Fostering Connections to
Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (Fostering
Connections Act) (H.R. 6893, P.L. 110-351) required child
welfare agencies to provide notice to all grandparents and other
adult relatives within 30 days of a child's removal from their
parents and placement in foster care (42 U.S.C. Section 671(a))
or risk loss of significant federal foster care funds. AB 938
(Assembly Committee on Judiciary) Chapter 261, Statutes of 2009,
implemented the Fostering Connections Act federal mandate in
California and included a requirement that social workers
provide all notified relatives with a relative information form
to assist the court with information about the child's needs,
beginning January 1, 2011.
Several attempts have been made to better facilitate family
finding activities, including AB 1402 (Bass) from 2009, which
was held on suspense in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
AB 1402 would have required the Department of Social Services
(DSS) to apply for or support a California-based application for
the federal matching Family Connection Grant in order to connect
foster children with family members. In 2005, and again in
2006, Assembly Member Cohn introduced AB 880 and AB 2031,
respectively, which would have required DSS to convene a
stakeholder group to draft guidelines on best practices in the
use of advanced technology to identify relatives and NREFMs, as
eight California counties had already voluntarily begun programs
in family finding, which could serve as models on a statewide
basis. AB 880 and AB 2031 were both vetoed by Governor
Schwarzenegger on the basis that, because California is a
national leader in identifying relatives of foster children, and
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these bills were unnecessary. AB 149 (Bass) 2008, also vetoed
by Governor Schwarzenegger, would have similarly provided
counties with technology to assist with relative searches.
Rationale: The sponsor of this bill, California Youth
Connection, cites to the practice of Family Finding and
Engagement (FFE) which involves identifying close and distant
relatives of foster youth and connecting them in an effort to
establish or maintain permanent connections, as central to this
bill. FFE was among the recommendations put forward by the
bipartisan Child Welfare Council and the California Blue Ribbon
Commission on Foster Care. The Blue Ribbon Commission's
specific FFE recommendations included: that child welfare
agencies should engage family members at the earliest point
possible in their engagement with families in order to support
families and children; child welfare systems should develop and
improve internal protocols for finding family members; and,
courts and child welfare agencies should expedite services for
families and ensure that foster children maintain a relationship
with all family members and other important people in their
lives.
This bill seeks to build upon the requirements of AB 938 and the
goals of the federal Fostering Connections Act by ensuring that
social workers are trained in techniques for searching,
determining which relatives may be suitable, and engaging them
in establishing or maintaining long-term relationships with the
foster child, including plans to achieve permanency, and by
providing court oversight.
Questions: Is the inclusion of a report on efforts to find
NREFM inconsistent with existing requirements? Since AB 938 did
not require social workers to include NREFM in their research of
relatives, the requirement to provide information regarding
their efforts to achieve this during the disposition hearing may
be inconsistent with provisions of existing law.
Will the goals of this bill be achieved as proposed? As
written, this bill requires social workers who make efforts to
locate extended family members of foster children and establish
permanent familial connections for those children to take part
in existing practice-relevant training already provided to a
variety of social workers and child protective service workers.
Clarity may be needed to ensure that these social workers are
provided training in how to locate extended family members and
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establish permanent family connections by including these
activities in the training program specified in WIC 16206 (c).
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
The California Youth Connection (Sponsor)
Executive Committee of the Family Law Section (State Bar of CA)
The California Alliance of Child and Family Services
The John Burton Foundation for Children without Homes
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Michelle Doty Cabrera / HUM. S. / (916)
319-2089