Foster children.

Existing law generally provides for the placement of foster children in various placement settings, and governs the provision of child welfare services, which is defined to mean public social services that are directed toward the accomplishment of specified purposes, including protecting and promoting the welfare of all children, preventing the unnecessary separation of children from their families, and restoring to their families children who have been removed. Existing law also prohibits the unlawful denial of full and equal access to the benefits of, or the unlawful discrimination under, any program or activity that is conducted, operated, or administered by the state or by any state agency, that is funded directly by the state, or that receives any financial assistance from the state, for a person on the basis of, among other classifications, sexual orientation. This bill would explicitly prohibit placing agencies, when placing foster children, from declining to place a child with a resource family because of a resource family parent's actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The bill would also remove various uses of the phrase "hard-to-place children."