Postadoption instability: unlawful transfer of custody.

Existing law regulates adoption services by the State Department of Social Services, county adoption agencies, licensed adoption agencies, and other adoption service providers and requires the department to adopt regulations pertaining to those services. Existing law makes it a misdemeanor for a parent of a minor to willfully omit, without lawful excuse, to furnish necessary clothing, food, shelter, or medical attendance, or other remedial care for his or her child. Existing law makes it a crime for a parent of a child under 14 years of age, and a person to whom the child has been confided for nurture or education, to desert the child in any place with intent to abandon the child, as specified. Existing law makes it a misdemeanor for a parent or organization, without holding a valid and unrevoked license to place children for adoption, to advertise in a public medium, as specified, that he, she, or it will place children for adoption, or accept, supply, provide, or obtain children for adoption, or to cause an advertisement to be published in or by a public medium soliciting, requesting, or asking for a child or children for adoption. This bill would require the State Department of Social Services, in consultation with specified individuals and entities, to establish a working group to review the challenges facing families with adopted children, to identify resources within the community that will assist families with these challenges, and to make recommendations to the Legislature as to the services that may be helpful to these families. The bill would require the working group to meet no later than April 1, 2017, and would require the working group's recommendations to be submitted in a report to the appropriate policy committees of the Legislature on or before April 1, 2018.