BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1611
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Date of Hearing: April 24, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Jim Beall Jr., Chair
AB 1611 (Beall) - As Amended: April 18, 2012
SUBJECT : Child welfare: racial and ethnic disparities
SUMMARY : Requires counties to develop and implement plans to
address racial and ethnic disparities, and failures to equitably
serve all communities of color, in the child welfare system.
Specifically, this bill :
1)States legislative findings and declarations, including the
following:
a) It is the intent of the Legislature to eliminate racial
and ethnic disproportionality in the child welfare system
that is a result of the unnecessary and avoidable removal
of children from their families and the failure to
equitably serve all communities of color, particularly the
Latino community.
b) Latinos make up nearly 38%of the population of the
state, but comprise over one-half of the overall child
welfare caseload.
c) Black children represent almost 6% of the state's
population of children and youth, but represent roughly 22%
of the population in care in the child welfare system.
When controlling for poverty, Black children enter the
system at approximately the same rate as White children,
but remain in the system at a rate that is almost one and
one-half times the rate of White children.
d) Although there are variations by geographic area and
across communities of color, children and youth from
non-white racial and ethnic communities, overall, enter the
child welfare system at a higher rate, are represented in
the system at a higher percentage, and remain in the system
longer than their White counterparts.
e) Statistical disparities of children and youth of color
in the child welfare system may be a result of numerous
complex and interdependent factors, including poverty,
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classism, racism, limited cultural competence and diversity
among staff and service providers, agency policies, and
systemic practices, and limited access to services and
resources, including prevention, family support, and mental
health services.
f) Many of the societal factors resulting in these
disparities are not readily amenable to change by reforms
in the child welfare system alone. Nonetheless, more can be
done, for example, to eliminate disparities in services and
supports provided and enhance the cultural competence of
county staff and service providers.
g) Child welfare agencies must conduct thorough
self-assessments, develop action plans, and monitor their
progress if they are to eliminate inequities in the child
welfare system.
2)Requires that outcome indicators for the California Child and
Family Service Review System (C-CFSR) be examined for each
racial and ethnic population serviced within a county to
assist in identifying and developing strategies to eliminate
inequities in the services provided and disparities in
outcomes among the populations served.
3)Requires each county, based on its review cycle, to address in
the county self-assessment (CSA) and county system improvement
plan (SIP) the county's planned activities, including time
frames for implementation, to eliminate any disparities
identified in services and outcomes for children of color in
the county's child welfare system and to provide adequate and
culturally appropriate services for overrepresented and
majority populations, particularly the Latino, Black, and
Native American populations.
4)Provides that the county's planned activities to address the
above issues may include, but are not limited to, prevention
services and supports for families of children at risk of
placement in the child welfare system, and the use of
culturally competent staffing, resources, and practices.
5)Requires the county's CSA and SIP to address strategies for
improving and expediting permanent outcomes for children and
youth from communities of color that are overrepresented in
the county's child welfare system, including developing
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collaborative partnerships with families and community-based
organizations and strategies to identify and recruit kin and
nonkin adoptive families.
6)Requires counties with a due date for its next SIP after the
effective date of this bill that is on or after January 1,
2014 to amend its most recent SIP by December 31, 2013 to
address the issues required by this bill.
7)Requires the Department of Social Services (DSS) in
identifying and promoting the replication of best practices in
child welfare service delivery to achieve specified measurable
outcomes to include best practices for increasing cultural
competency in the provision of services and eliminating
inequities in the delivery of services that result in
disparities in outcomes among racial and ethnic populations,
particularly the Latino, Black, and Native American
communities.
8)Requires DSS to provide to legislative budget and policy
committees concerning the findings and recommendations for
child welfare system improvements identified in county CSAs
and SIPs, information on efforts to assess the bases for
disproportionality and disparities in services and outcomes
for children of color and to address those issues.
9)Requires DSS, using existing resources of private funding, to
contract for research evaluating the disproportionate
representation of, and inequities in services for, Latino
children and families in the child welfare system, and issue a
report to the Legislature and Governor, including findings and
recommendations, by January 1, 2015.
10) Provides that, if the director of DSS determines that a
county is substantially failing to comply with the
requirements of its SIP addressing issues of
disproportionality or the provision of adequate and culturally
appropriate services to majority and minority communities
within the county, he or she may take any appropriate action,
including providing enhanced technical assistance to a county,
requiring the county to conduct additional self-assessments
and adopt SIP amendments, or taking other authorized remedial
actions.
EXISTING LAW
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1)Through DSS and county welfare departments, establishes a
system of child welfare services, including foster care, for
children who have been or are at risk of being abused or
neglected.
2)Requires DSS to establish the C-CFSR to review all county
child welfare systems, with reviews covering child protective
services, foster care, adoption, family preservation, family
support, and independent living. Welfare & Institutions Code
Section 10601.2.
3)Requires the Health and Human Services Agency to convene a
workgroup to establish a workplan by which child and family
service reviews shall be conducted and to consider, among
other things, measurable outcome indicators.
4)Requires the workgroup to consider whether to establish
outcome indicators that support the federal outcomes and any
program improvement plan, and promote good health, mental
health, behavioral, educational, and other relevant outcomes
for children and families in the state's child welfare
services system.
5)Requires DSS to identify and promote the replication of best
practices in child welfare service delivery to achieve the
measurable outcomes established for the C-CFSR, and to
annually provide information to legislative budget and policy
committees, including findings and recommendations for child
welfare system improvements identified in CSAs and SIPs,
including information on common statutory, regulatory, or
fiscal barriers identified as inhibiting system improvement,
and any recommendation to overcome those barriers.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : In the context of the child welfare system,
disproportionality refers to the situation where a group makes
up a proportion of the child welfare caseload that is higher or
lower than that group's proportion of the population. Disparity
refers to a comparison of one group-with respect to, for
example, disproportionality, services, or outcomes-to another
group. Both disproportionality and disparities are issues, in
California and nationally, with respect to race and ethnicity of
children in child welfare systems. Consistent with national
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data, a recent report of the California Disproportionality
Project, for example, which addressed racial disproportionality
and disparities for African American and American Indian
children in child welfare, concluded that entry into out-of-home
care and lengths of stay are higher for these populations than
for their White counterparts, while family reunification and
exit rates are lower. California Disproportionality Project
Breakthrough Series Collaborative Final Report, Child and Family
Policy Institute of California (July 2011) (Disproportionality
Project Report).<1>
By way of example, Black children enter the child welfare system
at approximately 3.4 times the rate of White children and are in
care at a rate almost 5 times as great. Native American
children enter care at a rate of approximately 3 times the rate
of White children and are in care at a rate almost 4 times as
great. Social Services Research, University of California at
Berkeley, California's Child Welfare Performance Indicators
Project (2010 data). Disproportionality can vary by
geographical area. Latinos, for example, make up nearly 38% of
the population of the state but comprise over half of the
overall child welfare caseload. In Santa Clara County, however,
Latinos make up only about 25% of the population but nearly 64%
of the foster care population.
Theories on factors resulting in disproportionality in the child
welfare system abound. The findings of this bill, for example,
note that disproportionality and disparities are the result of
numerous complex and interdependent factors, including poverty,
classism, racism, limited cultural competence and diversity
among staff and service providers, agency policies, and systemic
practices, and limited access to services and resources,
including prevention, family support, and mental health
services. A report of a three-year project examining African
American disproportionality in nine states (including
California) from the perspective of child welfare workers
similarly lists themes identified by welfare agency
participants, including: Poverty and poverty-related
---------------------------
<1> The Disproportionality Project decided to exclude Latino
disproportionality and disparities from the project, despite the
fact that Latinos comprise over one half of the state's child
welfare caseload. Disproportionality Project Report, p. 26. A
similar omission was made by the California Partners for
Permanency, an ongoing 5-year federally funded project to reduce
the number of children in long-term foster care.
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circumstances; the lack of services in resource-poor
communities; visibility due to more contact with public service
systems; lack of information; over-reporting of minority parents
for child abuse and neglect; media pressure; and staff racial
and cultural biases. Children of Color in Child Welfare
Systems: Perspectives from the Child Welfare Community,
Department of Health and Human Services Children's Bureau,
Administration for Children and Families (December 2003).
Other states' activities to address disproportionality and
disparities
The California Research Bureau, California State Library (CRB),
at the request of the author, recently conducted a survey to
determine how other states are addressing the issue of
disproportionally represented ethnic or racial groups in their
foster care systems. In reporting on its findings, in March
2012, CRB determined that, of 32 responding states, 24 are
taking some action-13 via legislation, 11 via agency
initiatives. Several states have established commissions or
committees working with state agencies on an ongoing basis. A
number of states have established data reporting systems,
family/community-based involvement, and specialized training or
staff positions dedicated to the issues.
CRB found that states engage in a range of activities, from
promoting adoption and foster care services among people of
color, to training agency staff on cultural differences and bias
issues. Some states have published reports evaluating their
programs, and several have ongoing external evaluative
processes, through advisory boards or similar entities.
The C-CFSR
In 2004, the implementation of AB 636 (Steinberg), Chapter 678,
Statutes of 2001, brought a new Child Welfare Services Outcome
and Accountability System to California-the C-CFSR. The C-CFSR
focuses primarily on measuring outcomes in the areas of safety,
permanency, and child and family well-being, closely following
the federal emphasis on these areas. The C-CFSR operates on a
philosophy of continuous quality improvement, interagency
partnerships, community involvement, and public reporting of
program outcomes. The C-CFSR includes several processes which
together are intended to provide a comprehensive picture of
county child welfare practices.
The C-CFSR and this bill
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This bill utilizes the C-CFSR system as the basis for individual
county child welfare agencies to assess and address issues of
racial and ethnic disproportionality and disparities. Thus,
utilizing the existing C-CFSR infrastructure and processes, this
bill requires the C-CFSR workgroup to include race and ethnicity
as factors in developing outcome indicators. In conducting CSAs
and developing SIPs, it requires counties to address strategies
and ongoing and planned efforts to eliminate disparities in
services and outcomes for children of color in the county's
child welfare system.
This bill also requires DSS, when it is identifying and
promoting best practices in child welfare service delivery, to
include increasing cultural competency and eliminating
inequities in the delivery of services that result in
disparities in outcomes among racial and ethnic populations. It
also requires DSS to include disproportionality and disparities
in services and outcomes for children of color in the findings
and recommendations for improvements in the child welfare system
that it is annually required to provide to the Legislature.
This bill authorizes DSS to take appropriate action to enforce
compliance with the requirements of this bill.
Finally, in recognition of the fact that recent state
initiatives and research evaluating the disproportionate
representation of, and inequities in services for communities of
color have explicitly omitted the Latino community, this bill
requires DSS to address that gap by contracting for research
focusing on Latino children and families using existing
resources or by identifying private funding for this purpose.
The author says that:
The fact of racial and ethnic disproportionality and
disparities in all phases of the state's child welfare
system-including prevention, entries, access to
resources and services, lengths of stay, and
outcomes-is not disputed and has been widely studied
and discussed. It's time that we take affirmative
steps to actually address and eliminate these
inequities.
This bill builds on existing self-evaluation and
accountability systems to require each county to
develop and implement plans to address inequities in
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its child welfare systems. By utilizing the existing
CSA and SIP process, this bill enables each county to
tailor its efforts to its unique circumstances and
needs. Particularly in the face of eventual
realignment, this bill also specifies the ongoing role
of DSS in enforcing requirements for development and
implementation of systems improvements, and in
identifying and promoting best practices, for
increasing cultural competency in the provision of
services and eliminating inequities in the delivery of
services that result in disparities in outcomes among
racial and ethnic populations.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
(sponsor)
Dolores Huerta Foundation, Inc. (sponsor)
La Raza Roundtable de California (sponsor)
California Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (Cal-ACAP)
Children's Law Center
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Eric Gelber / HUM. S. / (916) 319-2089