Subsidized child care and development services: stages of child care: CalWORKs.

The Child Care and Development Services Act has a purpose to provide a comprehensive, coordinated, and cost-effective system of child care and development services for children from infancy to 13 years of age and their parents, including a full range of supervision, health, and support services through full- and part-time programs. The act provides that it is the intent of the Legislature to ensure that recipients and former recipients of CalWORKs are connected as soon as possible to local child care resources, make stable child care arrangements, and continue to receive subsidized child care services after they no longer receive aid as long as they require those services and meet eligibility requirements. The act establishes 3 stages of child care services through which a recipient of CalWORKs will pass. This bill would prohibit the first stage or the 2nd stage of child care services from being discontinued until confirmation is received from the administrator of the subsequent stage of child care that the family has been enrolled in the subsequent stage of child care, or that the family is ineligible for services in the subsequent stage of child care, in order to ensure that there is no disruption in child care services due to the planned transition between the stages of CalWORKs child care. Existing law makes confidential and prohibits the release of information about applicants for public social services. Notwithstanding this prohibition, existing law authorizes a county welfare department to share information necessary for the administration of child care programs and the CalWORKs program. This bill would require that specified information be made available by a county welfare department to a contractor that provides child care services. The bill would require, beginning no later than November 1, 2019, a county welfare department to provide a monthly report to stage 2 contractors containing specified information. The bill would require that report to be jointly designed with representatives from the State Department of Social Services, the County Welfare Directors Association of California, and Parent Voices, and in consultation with county welfare departments and the Statewide Automated Welfare System. The bill would require a county welfare department to provide training on security protocols and confidentiality of individual family data to a contractor who is given access to data pursuant to those provisions. By imposing new duties on county welfare departments, 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 the statutory provisions noted above.