BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 1460
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SENATE THIRD READING
SB 1460 (Human Services Committee)
As Amended August 4, 2014
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE :37-0
HUMAN SERVICES 6-0 APPROPRIATIONS 17-0
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|Ayes:|Stone, Maienschein, |Ayes:|Gatto, Bigelow, |
| |Ammiano, | |Bocanegra, Bradford, Ian |
| |Ian Calderon, Garcia, | |Calderon, Campos, |
| |Lowenthal | |Donnelly, Eggman, Gomez, |
| | | |Holden, Jones, Linder, |
| | | |Pan, Quirk, |
| | | |Ridley-Thomas, Wagner, |
| | | |Weber |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Makes various changes to child welfare statute to
bring it into compliance with specified federal acts.
This bill is a Senate Human Services Committee bill that brings
California's child welfare laws into compliance with federal
laws and regulations regarding the Multi Ethnic Placement Act
(MEPA), the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS), the Fostering
Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, the
Adam Walsh Act, tribal child welfare, resource family approval,
and others. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires county recruitment of potential foster parents to
include diligent efforts to recruit individuals who reflect
the ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity of foster children.
2)Provides a county child welfare agency or county probation
department may request and receive a relative's name, social
security number, most recent address, telephone number, place
of employment, or other contact information to identify,
locate and notify relatives of children who are the subject of
juvenile court proceedings, including all grandparents, adult
siblings, and other adult relatives of the child as specified.
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3)Requires a probation officer to explain why siblings are not
placed together and what efforts the probation officer is
making to place the siblings together or why making those
efforts would be contrary to the safety and well-being of any
of the siblings.
4)Provides a ward's attorney and the attorney for the siblings
of the ward be notified by the placement agency if there is a
need for a change in placement that will result in the
separation of siblings currently placed together.
5)Allows additional counties to participate in the early
implementation of the "resource family" pilot project
regarding new standards for foster homes. Provides a federal
criminal offender record check be received for all adults
residing in a resource family home as a condition of approval
and makes other technical and conforming changes regarding
resource families.
6)Allows tribes to receive criminal history and child abuse
information from Department of Justice (DOJ) and establishes
the requirements for tribes to complete the approval for
tribal foster homes. Authorizes DOJ to charge a fee for
providing this information to the tribe.
7)Provides for the transfer of Indian child case records from a
county to tribal jurisdiction.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)Negligible costs to the Department of Social Services.
2)On-going, likely non-reimbursable, costs in the range of
$15,000 to county probation departments for duties regarding
sibling placements. Proposition 30, passed by the voters in
November 2012, eliminated potential mandate funding liability
for any new program or higher level of service provided by
counties related to realigned programs.
COMMENTS : This is a Senate Human Services Committee bill that
implements various non-controversial state compliance issues
regarding the MEPA, the FPLS, the Fostering Connections to
Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, the Indian Child
Welfare Act (ICWA) and the Adam Walsh Act.
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California statute must comply with federal requirements
pertaining to child welfare in order to ensure the uninterrupted
flow of California's Title IV-E allocation for child welfare
services, which is over $1 billion annually. This bill
implements necessary changes to statute identified by the
California Department of Social Services.
The Multi Ethnic Placement Act (Public Law (P.L.) 103-382):
MEPA requires states to have an identifiable process in place to
diligently recruit potential foster parents and adoptive parents
that reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of children in the
state for whom foster and adoptive homes are needed. State
statute authorizes counties to operate recruitment programs to
ensure an adequate number of foster homes are available to meet
their child welfare placement needs. However, statute does not
address the recruitment of foster families who reflect the
diversity of children for whom foster homes are needed nor
requires the diligent recruitment of adoptive homes at all.
According to CDSS, the federal government has specifically
inquired as to what California will do to meet the requirements
of the MEPA. This bill explicitly requires that an agency that
recruits foster and adoptive parents undertake diligent efforts
to ensure that recruitments reflect the diversity of the
children needing placement.
FPLS is a national automated service provided by the Office of
Child Support Enforcement to help states locate custodial and
noncustodial parents for child support and to establish, modify
and enforce child support obligations. The FPLS and its
state-level counterpart, the California Parent Locator Service
(CPLS) provides access to a parent's address, employment,
income, assets, and social security number information.
Family find requirements: Pursuant to the federal Fostering
Connections Act, AB 1751 (Pan), Chapter 637, Statutes of 2012,
allowed county child welfare departments and county probation
departments to access the FPLS and CPLS for the purpose of
locating a child's non-custodial parent. However, this
authority did not extend to finding other relatives of a child,
as provided for under federal law (45 Code of Federal
Regulations 302.35). This bill permits the FPLS and CPLS to be
used in the identification and notification of relatives of a
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child who is the subject of a juvenile court proceeding.
Additionally, this bill authorizes child welfare agencies and
county probation to access the information for this purpose.
The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions
Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-351) requires states to make diligent
efforts to place siblings in out-of-home care together, unless
doing so would be detrimental to the health and safety of one of
the siblings. State statute was revised to conform to this
provision, however the changes failed to clearly state that
probation officers are also required to make these efforts as
required by federal law. Because, in practice, probation
officers follow the same procedures as social workers for
placing children in foster care and federal law makes no
distinction between children in the care and custody of a county
child welfare department and children in the care and custody of
a county probation department, this bill explicitly applies the
federal requirements to probation officers.
AB 1751 allowed county child welfare departments and county
probation departments to access the FPLS and CPLS for the
purpose of locating a child's non-custodial parent. However,
this authority did not extend to finding other relatives of a
child, as provided for under federal law.
Adam Walsh Act (P.L. 109-248): The Adam Walsh Act requires a
fingerprint check of a national criminal records database as
well as a check from the state child abuse and neglect
registries before any prospective foster or adoptive parent may
be approved for placement of a child.
Current state statute regarding caregiver background checks as
part of the Resource Family Approval (RFA) process for foster
care and adoptive placements require that state criminal history
information be received and processed for clearance prior to
approval. However, as a result of the previously slow process
time for the federal records check, the RFA background check
process merely requires the federal check be submitted, and does
not require that the results be received, prior to approval.
This is in conflict with federal law. Additionally, federal
response times to background check requests have since
significantly improved.
To comply with the requirements of the Adam Walsh Act, this bill
provides that approval as a resource family can be granted only
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after federal criminal history information is received.
The RFA Program was initially authorized pursuant to AB 340
(Hancock), Chapter 464 Statutes of 2007, and was further
implemented through SB 1013 (Budget and Fiscal Review
Committee), Chapter 35, Statutes of 2012.
Tribal Child Welfare: The ICWA requires that Indian children be
placed first in a foster home of the child's tribe. With the
exception of the criminal background standards, existing federal
and state law allows tribes to approve foster homes based on
tribal rather than state standards. Existing state law does not
allow tribes to receive criminal background and child abuse
information from DOJ for the purpose approving foster homes
unless they have a Title IV-E agreement (only two of 113 have an
agreement). Therefore, in order to approve a tribal home, the
tribe must request the state or county review the criminal
background information and provide a clearance or denial.
Because this is done only on a child-specific basis, after a
child is removed, when tribal children are removed they must be
placed somewhere else while the approval process is completed
for a tribal family. As a result, counties cannot comply with
federal ICWA placement preference requirements and children
experience additional trauma and disruption.
Resource Families: Current state law establishes new standards
for foster homes, called "resource families" to be tested in
five counties before authorizing the program statewide. In
order to meet federal requirements that foster care standards
apply across all foster homes statewide, additional counties
need to implement the new standards during the piloting phase in
order to achieve implementation statewide within the required
timeframes. Without statutory authority for additional counties
to participate, these counties would not be able to receive
federal financial participation in foster care payments to
resource families.
Analysis Prepared by : Chris Reefe / HUM. S. / (916) 319-2089
FN: 0004488
SB 1460
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