Existing law, commonly known as Continuum of Care Reform (CCR), states the intent of the Legislature in adopting CCR to improve California’s child welfare system and its outcomes by using specified measures, including an increase in the use of home-based family care. Existing law, as part of CCR, provides for the implementation of the resource family approval process, which replaces the multiple processes for licensing foster family homes, certifying foster homes by foster family agencies, approving relatives and nonrelative extended family members as foster care providers, and approving guardians and adoptive families.

As part of the resource family approval process, a county is responsible for, among other things, ensuring that a resource family applicant completes specified training that includes certain courses, including one regarding the effects of trauma and child abuse and neglect on child development and behavior, and methods to behaviorally support children impacted by that trauma or child abuse and neglect. Existing law also establishes an intensive services foster care program, developed by the State Department of Social Services, that provides specialized programs to serve children with specific needs, and requires training for that program to include, among other things, information relating to working with children who have experienced trauma.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature in adopting the bill to build upon the current CCR implementation effort by, among other things, developing a coordinated, timely, and trauma-informed system-of-care approach for children and youth in foster care who have experienced severe trauma. The bill would require each county to develop and implement a memorandum of understanding, as specified, setting forth the roles and responsibilities of agencies and other entities that serve children and youth in foster care who have experienced severe trauma.

This bill would require the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to include, at a minimum, provisions addressing, among other things, the establishment and operation of an interagency leadership team and an interagency placement committee. The bill would authorize members of the team, to the extent permitted by federal law, to disclose to, and exchange with, one another information or a writing that may be designated as confidential under state law if certain conditions are met, and would make any discussion concerning the disclosed or exchanged information or writing during a team meeting confidential and not open to public inspection. The bill would require members of an interagency placement committee, child abuse multidisciplinary personnel team, or child and family team, as defined, that is convened for the purpose of implementing the MOU, to comply with applicable statutory confidentiality provisions for that committee or team.

By creating new duties for county officials relating to foster care services, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

This bill would require the Secretary of California Health and Human Services and the Superintendent of Public Instruction, no later than June 1, 2019, to establish a joint interagency resolution team, consisting of representatives from specified state departments, whose primary roles would be to develop guidance and provide support and technical assistance to counties with regard to those children and youth and the memoranda of understanding, as specified. The bill would also require the team, no later than January 1, 2020, in consultation with specified entities and persons, to review the placement and service options available to county child welfare agencies and county probation departments for those children and youth, to develop and submit recommendations to the Legislature, regarding identified gaps in placement, needed services, and a centralized process for services, as specified, and, no later than June 1, 2020, to develop a multiyear plan for increasing the capacity and delivery of trauma-informed care to foster children and youth served by short-term residential therapeutic programs and other foster care and behavioral health providers. The bill would authorize the joint interagency resolution team, to the extent permitted by federal law, to disclose to, and exchange with, one another information or a writing that may be designated as confidential under state law, if certain conditions are met, and would make any discussion concerning the disclosed or exchanged information or writing during a team or committee meeting shall be confidential and shall not be open to public inspection.

Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest.

This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.