BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
BILL NO: SB 118
S
AUTHOR: Liu
B
VERSION: April 20, 2009
HEARING DATE: April 28, 2009
1
FISCAL: To Appropriations
1
8
CONSULTANT:
Hailey
SUBJECT
Child welfare services: incarcerated parents
SUMMARY
Directs counties to include information about incarcerated
parents receive services required by the court to reunify
that parent with his or her children.
ABSTRACT
Current law :
1. Establishes child welfare services, including foster
care, for children who are dependents of the juvenile court
because they have been abused or neglected and for children
who are wards of the juvenile court due to truancy and
other statutory violations.
2. Includes family reunification services among those
child welfare services to assist a parent to reunify with
his or her child if the court finds that is in the best
interests of the child.
3. Establishes that each child receiving child welfare
services have a case plan that includes information,
Continued---
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including any family reunification services prescribed by
the court.
4. Provides that counties shall act as the arm of the
state in providing child welfare services to dependents and
wards and their families.
This bill :
1. Requires that the case plan include information about a
parent's incarceration.
2. Encourages the Department of Social Services and
counties to consult on ways to incorporate this information
as a mandatory field in the statewide database.
3. Encourages county agencies, including departments of
social welfare and sheriffs offices, and the State
Department of Justice to develop protocols facilitating
information exchange about incarcerated parents.
FISCAL IMPACT
Unknown
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
Need for the bill
The author observes that expanded and lengthened criminal
sentences have resulted in a growing number of children
whose parents are in jail or prison. Research finds that
at least one third of the children in the child welfare
system have experienced the arrest of a parent. To improve
child welfare services to these children, especially when
there is a possibility of parent and child being reunified,
improvements need to be made to the child welfare services
case management system. The author believes that
information about a parent's incarceration should be in a
child's case plan.
Related legislation
AB 2070 (Bass, Chapter 482, Statutes of 2008) increased the
length of time that reunification services are available to
incarcerated parents of children receiving child welfare
services.
STAFF ANALYSIS OF SENATE BILL 118 (Liu) Page
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The author of SB 118 believes that for AB 2070 to achieve
its goal of promoting the reunification of parent and
child, whenever possible, children's case plans need
information about whether the parent is incarcerated.
General data
In 2003, the California Research Bureau, at the California
State Library, released a report California Law and the
Children of Prisoners. The research bureau reported that
in California prisons nearly 80 percent of women and
two-thirds of men are parents. The research bureau also
found that the connections between imprisoned parents and
child welfare services are limited and tenuous at best,
even when a child is in foster care and a reunification
plan is in place; the state's child welfare services case
management system does not necessarily record that the
child has a parent in jail or prison.
Since the release of the research bureau's report,
additional organizations and individual academic
researchers have added to the information available to
policy makers. The Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center
reported in 2008, in Broken bonds, understanding and
addressing the needs of children with incarcerated parents,
that "one of the greatest needs within the policy community
lies in obtaining better records of the number of children
with incarcerated parents." The Journal of Public Child
Welfare included a recent article by researchers at the
University of Illinois who confirmed that emotional and
behavioral problems are more prevalent in children whose
parents have been involved with the criminal justice system
than those who have not, and they argue that child welfare
caseworkers can have success with parents who are now out
of jail or prison.
Another recent article, published in the Journal of Child
and Family Studies, reported that one in eight children
whom child protective services agencies encounter have
parents who were recently arrested. Many of those children
enter foster care or enter into the care of another
relative - including fathers and grandparents. A
significant number of children who come to the attention of
child protective services, one in 20, remain with the
parent who has been sentenced to probation in the past
STAFF ANALYSIS OF SENATE BILL 118 (Liu) Page
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year. Child welfare personnel are able to reduce the risk
exposure to these children through their services and
interventions. These finding suggest to the author that it
is important to ensure that child welfare case workers know
of a parent's history of parole or probation.
The practicalities of amending DSS forms and its child
welfare tracking system
While it may take from two to three years to make system
changes in the child welfare services case management
system, DSS believes that they can designate an existing
field for this information - and do so more quickly and
efficiently.
Arguments in support
The sponsors argue that incarcerated parents whose children
are in the dependency system respond positively to ongoing
contact with their children and are motivated to do well,
get out and stay out. Other supporters believe that the
bill takes a first step toward ensuring that the complex
needs of the children of incarcerated parents are met.
Arguments in opposition
Opponents argue that the bill gives new responsibilities to
counties to provide case management services to
incarcerated parents, including establishing a case plan,
without providing funding for the additional services.
POSITIONS
Support: Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers, Inc.
(sponsor)
American Federation of State, county and
Municipal Employees
Arkansas Voices for the Children Left
Behind, Inc.
California Society for Clinical Social Work
John Burton Foundation for Children Without
Homes
National Bill of Rights for Children of the
Incarcerated Policy
Partnership
3 Individuals
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Oppose: County of San Diego
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