WHEREAS, Child abuse and neglect not only scar the lives of tens of thousands of California children each year but also directly cost the state over $3 billion in added costs for the provision of social services and billions more in medical, mental health, and judicial costs; and

WHEREAS, Emerging child development research shows that exposure to violence negatively affects the brain development of young children; and

WHEREAS, California has assumed legal responsibility for over 100,000 children removed from abusive environments and has a special obligation to ensure that these children are provided the care, treatment, and educational opportunities needed to heal the scars of mistreatment; and

WHEREAS, Foster care can protect many children from further abuse and neglect; but for too many children foster care has failed to provide the healing and nurturing that these children need; and

WHEREAS, Policymakers should affirm the extraordinary obligation of the state to care for abused children and prevent abuse by helping troubled families; and

WHEREAS, When the state assumes the role of parent, it assumes the responsibility and the obligation to provide the highest quality of care; and

WHEREAS, Child abuse and neglect constitute behavior that can and must be prevented; and

WHEREAS, The state should encourage innovative programs by funding pilot programs, conducting rigorous evaluations, and aggressively replicating and expanding cost-effective strategies to minimize child abuse and the need for foster care placement; and

WHEREAS, Foster care caseloads are growing because more children are entering the system and staying longer; and

WHEREAS, Too many children are returned to foster care after failed attempts to reunify them with their families; and

WHEREAS, The adoption process is unnecessarily tedious and cumbersome, frustrating the goal of increasing the number of successful foster care adoptions, particularly for older children; and

WHEREAS, Children are staying in temporary placement too long, aggravating the trauma of separation and limiting opportunities for permanent placement in nurturing families; and

WHEREAS, When a child is placed in foster care, the child becomes a legal dependent of the state; the state must fully live up to its obligation to care for and nurture abused children under its protection by healing the traumas of maltreatment in order to speed these children toward successful adulthood; and

WHEREAS, Each case of child abuse is a personal tragedy and social malady with far-reaching consequences for all Californians; it is past time for policymakers to make abused and neglected children a priority and ensure that programs are managed effectively to respond comprehensively to this problem; and

WHEREAS, The Members of the Legislature recognize the need to focus on this important issue in the 2001–02 Regular Session; now, therefore, be it