Resource families: pilot program: supportive services.

Existing law provides for the implementation, by counties and foster family agencies, of the resource family approval process, which is a unified, family friendly, and child-centered approval process that replaces the multiple processes for licensing foster family homes, approving relatives and nonrelative extended family members as foster care providers, and approving adoptive families. This bill would require the State Department of Social Services to establish and facilitate a pilot program, as specified, in up to five counties that voluntarily apply and are selected by the department, to increase placement stability for foster youth and facilitate greater resource family retention through strengths-based, skills-based, trauma-informed coaching. The bill would set forth the components of the pilot program and would require the department, by June 30, 2019, to consult with relevant stakeholders and to consider the stakeholders' recommendations to the department regarding certain parameters of the pilot program, as specified. The bill would require a county that elects to participate in the pilot program to conduct at least one evaluation of the program's impact and effectiveness on increasing placement stability for foster youth and retaining resource families in accordance with, and upon issuance of guidance from, the department, and to submit the evaluation to the department, no later than December 31, 2021. The bill would require the department to report the information provided by the counties to the Legislature, as prescribed. The provisions of the bill would be repealed on January 1, 2022.