Foster children: special health care needs.

Under existing law, the State Department of Social Services licenses foster families, and the department and each county provide assistance to foster parents of low-income children under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children-Foster Care (AFDC-FC) program. Existing law requires the department to develop a program, to be administered by the department and county social services departments, for the establishment of foster care homes for children with special health care needs with foster parents trained by health care professionals pursuant to the discharge plan of the facility releasing the child being placed in, or currently in, foster care. Existing law requires each county department of social services to develop a specified plan for foster care placement of children with special health care needs. This bill would clarify that a medically fragile child, as defined, meets the definition of a child with special health care needs for the purposes of these provisions. The bill would require that, when determining the placement of a foster child who is medically fragile, priority consideration be given to placement with a foster parent who is an individual nurse provider, as defined, who provides health services under the federal Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment program, but that this priority consideration be subordinate to the preference granted to a relative of the child, in accordance with federal law.