Foster care: residentially based services.

Existing law provides for child welfare services, which are public social services directed toward, among other purposes, protecting and promoting the welfare of all children, including those in foster care placement. Existing law provides for the placement of children in foster care in various settings, including group homes, by foster placement agencies, under the oversight of the State Department of Social Services. Existing law provides for the Aid to Families with Dependent Children-Foster Care (AFDC-FC) program, under which, pursuant to a combination of federal, state, and county funds, aid on behalf of eligible children is paid to foster care providers. Existing law requires the department to convene a workgroup of designated public and private stakeholders that will develop a plan for transforming the current system of group care for foster children or youth, and for children with serious emotional disorders into a system of residentially based services, as defined. Existing law requires the department, by January 1, 2011, to provide a copy of the plan developed by the workgroup to the Legislature. This bill would extend the deadline for providing a copy of the plan developed by the workgroup to the Legislature to July 1, 2014. Existing law authorizes the Child Welfare Services Program Improvement Fund to provide a comprehensive system of support to promote positive outcomes for children and families, by expending funds on various programs, upon appropriation by the Legislature. This bill would allow the State Department of Social Services to fund various child welfare-related activities by means of grants from the fund, rather than by contract. This bill would also allow certain grants to be renewed, as specified. Existing law requires the department to encourage counties and private nonprofit agencies to develop voluntary agreements to test alternative program design and funding models to achieve specified objectives, and authorizes voluntary agreements between counties and nonprofit agencies to transfer all or part of an existing group home program into a residentially based services program, if specified conditions are met. Under existing law, these agreements are valid for a period not to exceed 5 years from January 1, 2008. Existing law authorizes the department to waive otherwise applicable regulatory provisions and approve alternative funding models, in order to facilitate implementation of these agreements, and specifies the required characteristics of these alternative funding models. Under existing law, a waiver granted by the director under these circumstances, and the related alternative funding model, is prohibited from resulting in an increase in costs to the General Fund for AFDC-FC payments, measured on an annual basis. This bill would revise requirements relating to the waivers and alternative funding models, to authorize higher AFDC-FC payments to children and youth enrolled in a residentially based services program, that are offset by cost efficiencies. This bill would require the department to conduct reviews of the county residentially based services program, no sooner than 18 months after the first child's enrollment into the program, to determine the effectiveness of the program, as specified. The bill would authorize the department to terminate a county's participation in residentially based services reform if it determines that the county is not meeting specified objectives. This bill would require agreements entered into pursuant to the residentially based services reform provisions to terminate on or before January 1, 2015.