BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1214
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 29, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Jim Beall Jr., Chair
SB 1214 (Wolk) - As Amended: May 27, 2010
SENATE VOTE : 33-0
SUBJECT : Crisis nurseries
SUMMARY : Redefines the scope of community care licensing for
crisis nurseries to the provision of short-term 24-hour
residential care and supervision for children under six years of
age voluntarily placed by a relative or other responsible adult
during a time of crisis or stress, and extends the sunset
allowing for the use of crisis nurseries as a child welfare
services direct placement option until July 1, 2012.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Sunsets existing statutes related to the licensing of crisis
nurseries on July 1, 2012.
2)Defines a "crisis nursery", effective July 1, 2012, as a
Department of Social Services (DSS) licensed facility that
provides short-term, 24-hour non-medical residential care and
supervision for children under the age of six voluntarily
placed by a parent, legal guardian, relative or other adult
responsible for the child's day-to-day care and supervision
during a family crisis or stressful situation.
3)Specifies that a voluntary placement does not include a child
directly placed by a county child welfare services agency.
4)Limits the time a child may be voluntarily placed in a crisis
nursery to no more than 30 days.
5)Limits the capacity for a crisis nursery at 14 licensed beds
with specified exceptions.
6)Requires crisis nurseries to collect and maintain information
on the total number and ages of children placed in the program
and the length of their placement, to be made available to DSS
upon request.
7)Provides that a crisis nursery may provide child day care
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services to children under the age of six at the same site for
up to 30 calendar days in a six-month period, unless granted
an exception by DSS.
8)Requires that exceptions to group home licensing regulations
for county-operated or contracted emergency shelter care
facilities for children under six be contained in regulations
for crisis nurseries.
EXISTING LAW
1)Defines a "crisis nursery" as a nonprofit facility licensed by
DSS to provide short-term, 24-hour non-medical residential
care and supervision for children under six years of age who
are either placed:
a) Voluntarily by a parent or legal guardian for
temporary relief in a family crisis or stressful
situation for no more than 30 days; or,
b) By a county welfare service agency for 14 days or
less, unless granted an exception by DSS, provided county
child welfare placements account for no more than
one-third of the a crisis nursery's licensed capacity.
Health and Safety Code (HSC) Section 1516.
2)Defines a "voluntary placement" as a child placed by a parent
or legal guardian who retains physical custody of, and remains
responsible for, the care of his or her child during the
temporary emergency care placement. Ibid.
3)Allows a crisis nursery to provide temporary emergency care to
children under six years of age either in the protective
custody of child welfare services, or as a child welfare
services direct placement. Ibid.
4)Allows crisis nurseries to provide child day care services to
children under six years of age for no more than 30 calendar
days in a six-month period, unless issued an exception by DSS,
and provides that children in the day care program shall count
toward the facility's licensed capacity. Ibid.
5)Limits the capacity of crisis nurseries to 14 infants and
children under the age of six, unless the facility was
licensed before January 1, 2004 as a group home for children
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under the age of six, providing crisis nursery services, with
a capacity between 14 and 21. Ibid.
6)Permits the use of volunteers subject to specified training
requirements to be included in the staff-to child ratios for
the purposes of licensing. HSC 1526.8.
7)Prohibits a child receiving Aid to Families with Dependent
Children-Foster Care (AFDC-FC) from falling under the
definition of a voluntary placement. HSC 1516.
8)Allows for AFDC-FC funding of children placed by child welfare
services in licensed crisis nurseries. Welfare & Institutions
Code (WIC) Section 11402.
9)Sets forth criteria for the licensure of a crisis nursery,
including that the facility meet one of the following
conditions:
a) The facility had been operating as a group home in the
county of Contra Costa, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, San
Joaquin, Stanislaus, or Yolo for children under 6 years of
age as of September 1, 2004.;
b) The facility meets an urgent, significant, and unmet
need for the temporary respite care of children under six
years of age, pursuant to DSS regulatory standards.; or
c) The facility offers temporary emergency shelter and
services only to children under six years of age who are
voluntarily placed by a parent or guardian and does not
accept county child welfare services placements. HSC 1516.
10)Requires each crisis nursery to submit a monthly report to
DSS with the number of children placed in the program, the
child's length of stay, and specifying whether each child was
voluntarily placed by a parent or legal guardian, or placed by
county child welfare services. Ibid.
11)Requires an annual summary report to DSS for those children
placed directly in crisis nurseries by a county child welfare
services agency, indicating the number of children placed, the
age of each child and length of stay, the average length of
stay for all children placed by the county, and the county's
reasons for using the crisis nursery for these children.
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Ibid.
12)Sunsets the above provisions on July 1, 2011.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown.
COMMENTS :
Background : Crisis nurseries provide short-term emergency
respite care for the infants, toddlers, or young children of
families in crisis without other options, such as trusted
friends or relatives to care for their children. Reports show
that families turn to crisis nurseries when they are struggling
to deal with illness, hospitalization, domestic violence,
homelessness, or substance abuse recovery. According to crisis
nursery proponents, temporary emergency respite care helps to
reduce the numbers of children who may enter the child welfare
system and end up in foster care by helping parents and legal
guardians to have a stable place for their child during a
short-term emergency.
In California, licensed crisis nurseries are established in
response to an urgent or unmet need for families in crisis, and
operated by private nonprofit agencies. Placements are
restricted to voluntary placements by parents or legal
guardians, and, at shorter, more restricted intervals, child
welfare services placements. In addition, many crisis nursery
programs in California have developed robust crisis day care
services, and the numbers of children in day care apply toward
the licensed capacity of the facilities.
Prior to 2004, crisis nurseries had been licensed as group
homes. Group homes are residential facilities used by the
courts and child welfare agencies for foster children whose
needs cannot be met in less restrictive, more family-like
settings such as relative placements, foster family homes, or
foster family agencies. Crisis nurseries that served children
under the age of six had been held to the group home regulations
for this cohort, commonly referred to as the "under six"
regulations, which require educational standards for staff,
defined staff to child ratios, and supportive services. As
stated in the DSS procedural guide for congregate care for
children under the age of six: "We have a firm belief that
these young children should never be placed in congregate care
unless exceptional circumstances exist which require services
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that only a group home can provide."
Supporters of crisis nurseries argued at the time that the more
stringent standards for group homes should not apply to crisis
nurseries given that the demands of children who are voluntarily
placed by their parents are less serious than those of an abused
or neglected child, and they cited a concern that the costs
associated with group home licensing threatened their financial
viability. In response, a separate licensing category was
created with the passage of SB 855 (Machado) Chapter 664,
Statutes of 2004. Changes brought about by the new licensure
category include a provision allowing crisis nurseries to use
trained volunteers instead of staff and allowing specified
volunteers to apply to staffing ratios.
The provisions of SB 855 were due to sunset on January 1, 2008,
but because licensing standards were not issued by DSS until
late 2007, the sunset was extended pursuant to SB 104 (Machado)
Chapter 288, Statutes of 2007, which added reporting
requirements and moved the sunset date to July 1, 2011.
Currently, five nonprofit agencies operate six crisis nursery
facilities with a total of 66 licensed beds in the counties of:
Contra Costa, Sacramento, Yolo, Stanislaus, and Nevada. The
crisis nurseries operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and rely
mostly on private funds, although some do receive funding
through their local First Five Commissions. Some counties, such
as Stanislaus work with parents and legal guardians involved in
the child welfare system to get them to voluntarily utilize the
crisis nursery services in an effort to avoid greater child
welfare services involvement.
The only existing crisis nursery that still accepts direct child
welfare services placements is the Yolo Crisis Nursery, and they
have one licensed bed for this purpose. A total of 97 children
and infants were directly placed by county child welfare
services in the Yolo Crisis Nursery over the course of four
years (2006-2009), accounting for approximately 43% of the total
overnight placements. Over the same period, around 57% (132
total) of the overnight placements were by voluntary placement.
The average length of stay for children in a child welfare
placement at the Yolo Crisis Nursery was 7 days. Notably, the
numbers of children in voluntary placement crisis day care at
the Yolo Crisis nursery rose dramatically from an average of
around 155 per year from 2006-2008, to 325 in 2009, an increase
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of 110% over the course of one year.
Need for this bill : This bill would allow a child to be
directly placed by his or her parent or legal guardian, or by a
relative or adult caregiver in a licensed crisis nursery. As
amended this bill sunsets provisions allowing for direct
placement of a child under six by county child welfare services
as of July 1, 2012.
According to the bill's sponsor, the California Alliance of
Child and Family Services:
In response to concerns about this specific use [child
welfare placements] of Crisis Nurseries by counties,
[this bill] would eliminate the authority for Crisis
Nurseries to accept placements made directly by county
child welfare agencies and to receive AFDC-Foster Care
payments, effective July 1, 2012. Under SB 1214,
parents, legal guardians, relatives, or other
caregivers would continue to be able to come to Crisis
Nurseries when they need a safe and stable place for
their children to stay for a few days while they deal
with a difficult situation in their lives.
According to the Youth Law Center, in removing their
opposition:
We are certain that developing quality foster family
home resources for children in care will ensure that
children in foster care receive the consistent care
from one responsive adult that is critical for healthy
development, and will protect already traumatized
young children from being subjected to an additional
necessary move and the documented harms of shift care.
In opposition , the Alliance for Children's Rights states:
One of the most important factors in the development
of an infant is the security of their attachment to a
primary caregiver. When a very young child is placed
in a group setting, as [this bill] allows, they are at
greater risk of failing to make these crucial
attachments because their caregivers are constantly
rotating in and out, as staff goes on and off shift
and volunteers cycle through. This can have
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profoundly negative impacts on the child's
development.
Proposed Amendments
The author has asked to take the following correction
amendments found by Senate Engrossing and Enrolling:
On page 5, line 29, add "children" after "14"
On page 5, line 32, add "children" after "14" and after
"21"
In addition , staff is recommending the following
amendments:
1)The existing statutes are clear that children who are
voluntarily placed in crisis nurseries must be placed by
a parent or legal guardian. This bill proposes to expand
the definition of "voluntary placements" to include
children placed by other relatives and adults responsible
for the child's day-to-day care and supervision. This
could be broadly interpreted, and is a departure from
what has been permitted and evaluated under current law.
Staff recommends the author limit voluntary placements to
placements made by parents or legal guardians, per
existing law as follows:
On page 5, line 14, after "voluntarily", strike
"placements" and add "placed by a parent or guardian"
On page 5, line 14, strike "as defined in" and replace
with "pursuant to"
On page 5, strike lines 24 through 27.
On page 5, line 23, add the following:
. Voluntary placement does not include a child who has
been removed from the care and custody of his or her
parent or legal guardian and placed in foster care by a
child welfare services agency.
2)Given that there is currently only one county in
California using a single licensed bed for child welfare
services placements, staff recommends restoring the
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existing sunset date for child welfare services
placements in crisis nurseries. This would provide Yolo
County with one year, until July 1, 2011, as provided
under existing law, to seek family-centered alternatives
for the few children currently placed in crisis
nurseries, consistent with statewide practice.
3)In addition, staff recommends including information
regarding the reasons for voluntary placement in a crisis
nursery to the information collected and maintained by
crisis nurseries as follows:
On page 5, line 39 insert "the reasons given for the use
of the crisis nursery,"
Prior & Related Legislation:
SB 104 (Machado) Chapter 288, Statutes of 2007 extended the
sunset for crisis nurseries to July 1, 2011, and required
specified reporting to DSS on child welfare placements in crisis
nurseries.
SB 855 (Machado) Chapter 664, Statutes of 2004 created a
separate licensing category for crisis nurseries, to sunset
January 1, 2008.
AB 1197 (Bates) Chapter 1088, Statutes of 1993 established
standards for congregate care placements for children under six
years of age, including "temporary shelter care facilities," or
facilities operated by counties for 24-hour temporary
residential placement.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Alliance of Child and Family Services (sponsor)
California State Association of Counties
The Child Abuse Prevention Center
EMQ Families First
Junior Leagues of California-State Public Affairs Committee
Junior League of Sacramento
Sacramento County Board of Supervisors
Yolo County Board of Supervisors
Opposition
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The Alliance for Children's Rights
2 Individuals
Analysis Prepared by : Michelle Doty Cabrera / HUM. S. / (916)
319-2089