Child welfare: racial and ethnic disparities.

Under existing law, the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act, every state agency that makes contact with, and every local agency that serves, a substantial number of non-English-speaking people is required to employ a sufficient number of qualified bilingual persons in public contact positions to ensure provision of information and services in the language of the non-English-speaking person, as specified. Under existing law, the state, through the State Department of Social Services and county welfare departments, is required to establish and support a public system of statewide child welfare services for the protection of children. This bill would prohibit the department and each county welfare department, and its vendors, from denying services to parents or children on the basis of the client's language, or discriminating against clients on the basis of race, color, or national origin in providing services to which clients are entitled. The bill would require the department, to the extent applicable, and each county welfare department to, among other things, determine and document the communication needs of each Hispanic parent and child, provide Spanish-speaking clients with information regarding child welfare services in Spanish, and have adequate bilingual staff capacity to assign bilingual workers to Spanish-speaking families. Existing law provides that when a child is removed from his or her family by the juvenile court, placement of the child in foster care should secure, as nearly as possible, the custody, care, and discipline equivalent to that which should have been given to the child by his or her parents. This bill would require that care for children who are in the county welfare department's custody shall be linguistically and culturally equivalent to, as nearly as possible, the care provided by the children's parents. The bill would require that children of Spanish-speaking parents be placed with Spanish-speaking foster parents, and require that placement occur within 60 days from the date the children are removed from their homes. Existing law requires the department to establish the California Child and Family Service Review System to review all county child welfare systems. Existing law requires the California Health and Human Services Agency to convene a workgroup, as prescribed, to establish a work plan by which child and family service reviews shall be conducted. Existing law requires the workgroup to consider, among other things, measurable outcome indicators. Existing law requires the department to identify and promote the replication of best practices in child welfare service delivery to achieve these outcomes. Existing law requires the department to provide prescribed information to legislative committees relating to child welfare system improvements, as specified. This bill would require the workgroup described above to examine outcome indicators for each racial and ethnic population served within a county. This bill would require a county to address in its self-assessment and system improvement plan, among other things, its efforts to eliminate disparities in services and outcomes for children of color in, and to provide adequate and culturally appropriate services within, its child welfare system, as specified. This bill would require the department to identify and promote best practices for increasing cultural competency in the provision of services and eliminating inequities in service delivery to racial and ethnic communities. This bill would authorize the director of the department to take specified actions if he or she determines a county substantially failed to comply with the requirements of its system improvement plan, as specified. This bill would require the department to report prescribed information relating to disparities for Latinos in the child welfare system to the Legislature by January 1, 2016. By imposing additional duties on counties relating to their self-assessments and system improvement plans and other child welfare services, this bill would create a state-mandated local program. 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.