June 30, 2026 · Human Services · 32,633 words · 12 speakers · 106 segments
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. I call this hearing of the Assembly Committee on Human Services to order. I would like to start today's hearing by welcoming back Assemblymember Sanchez to committee's membership and acknowledging our new vice chair, Assemblymember Tangipa. Once we have established quorum, we have 11 measures on the agenda, three of which are in consent. Please note that we limit testimony to two witnesses, each in support and two witnesses in opposition. Each witness is two minutes to testify. All additional witnesses will be limited to stating their name, organization, and the position on the bill. I also want to note that we are accepting written testimony through the position letter portal on the committee's website. Lastly, I would like to address disruptions during the hearing. Conduct that disrupts or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of this hearing is prohibited. If disorbative behavior occurs today, you will be removed from the hearing room by the Assembly Sergeants. Now for a little housekeeping. Assembly Rules Committee has determined that the fiscal implications of SB 1234 Alvarado-Gill and SB 1345 Wahab should be analyzed in the Appropriations Committee despite the bills being keyed nonfiscal. Upon passage from this committee, these bills refer to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. We will start as a subcommittee since we do not yet have assembly members on the committee yet. But we'll start with file item number three, SB 1099 by Senator Reyes.
And you may approach the desk when you ready Ready Thank you, Mr. Chair and staff. I'd like to present SB 1099, which clarifies California local government's authority to provide state or local public benefits to all residents under the statutory exemption provided in the federal personal responsibility and work opportunity. Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, also known as PROORA. Historically, California has relied on a statutory exemption under PROORA that allows local governments, at their discretion, to provide state and local public benefits to all residents. Thanks to this exemption, our local governments have been able to provide critical services, such as health care and safety net programs to all residents without worrying that they are in violation of federal law. Unfortunately, the California statute that provides this pro-war exemption is too vague and is not directly tied to how local and state public benefits are defined at the federal level. This creates risk because if the federal definition changes or is reinterpreted, our California exemption may fall out of alignment, potentially exposing local governments to compliance issues. SB 1099 addresses this by explicitly tying state law to the federal definition, ensuring clarity and consistency with federal requirements. Here to testify on the bill today is Dylan Elliott on behalf of the Civil Prosecutors Coalition.
Go ahead. Two minutes, please. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Again, Dylan Elliott here today on behalf of the Civil Prosecutors Coalition. The Civil Prosecutors Coalition is proud to sponsor SB 1099 alongside our co-sponsor, the County of Santa Clara. The coalition is composed of seven city attorneys and county councils, including the cities of Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and the counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Clara, representing some of the largest public law offices in the state and advising our local government clients on all issues. And that is why we are so glad to be working with Senator Reyes on SB 1099, a bill that creates a straightforward clarification of longstanding California law, allowing local agencies to spend state and local funds that offer critical programs and safety net services to all of our residents. This bill does not require local governments to do anything. Instead, it clarifies in statute local governments authority to develop and maintain programs that serve residents based on criteria established locally. City attorneys and county councils do their best to provide as much legal certainty as possible for their local government clients, and this bill will minimize risk and uncertainty, particularly in these difficult budget times. For those reasons, the Civil Prosecutors Coalition respectfully requests your aye vote. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Now, do we have any members of the public who wish to testify in support of the bill? Please come to the microphone. All right. Do we have any opposition to this bill? Witnesses in opposition. Do we have any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to this bill? Please come forward. Seeing none, I'm going to bring back to myself, to the committee. I have an eye recommendation for this bill, and I think it is important work in clarifying our role with the federal government. But I don't have any questions at this time. But, Senator, would you like to close?
I would respectfully ask for your eye vote.
All right. And we will move that bill at the appropriate time when we have a quorum. Thank you, Senator.
Thank you.
All right. Next on the agenda, I think I saw Senator Grove, who has SB 1190, item number five.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members.
Thank you. Mr. Chair, thank you.
Senator Reyes says the early bird gets the worm, so here we are.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm here today to present SB 1190, the Safe Passage for Youth Act. Before I get started, I really want to do thank the chair from the bottom of my heart, as well as the committee staff who did exceptional and tireless work on this bill and made 1190 even significantly stronger than the prior legislation. And you did that for us last time we had a bill that affected youth in our communities and out of state. And so you really have been a champion for that. So I just want to really do say thank you. I also want to thank the bill's sponsor, Paris Hilton, and all of the survivors associated with 1111 Media, Impact for their tireless engagement and bravery in sharing their own personal traumas and stories in order to advance protections for our vulnerable youth. As some of you may know, Paris Hilton was ripped from her bed in the middle of the night by strangers and transported her across state lines. This bill is a direct response to that trauma that she experienced as well as the experiences of many others in our state. When parents engage or make arrangements about a state residential placement, facilities are often recommending the hiring of the transport escort service. These companies often hire security-type individuals to show up in the dead of night, awaken a startled child, strip their phones away from them, and strip them out of bed and take them across state lines. We're seeing a trend of minors are subjected to physical restraints, blindfolds, abuse, and severe emotional distress. This is completely unacceptable, specifically in California and how we care for our children. SB 1190 establishes a Safe Passage for Youth Act to directly disseminate these abusive practices and ensure that the industry is properly regulated. SB 1190 also achieves this by requiring all transport companies to secure a charter party carrier permit through the CPUC and mandates that the staff be a trust line background checked. Furthermore, it strictly bans the use of blindfolds, hoods, or unauthorized physical restraints and institutes a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. transport curfew where we can't take somebody out of their bed in the middle of the night, and it empowers the AG to go after bad actors. If children are to be transported at all, then they should be provided with a regulated safe passage that respects their dignity. Here with me to testify today on behalf of our sponsor, Paris Hilton and 1111 Media Impact, is a survivor of the troubled teen industry and one of our champions that has worked with us for several years regarding this industry, Zoe Schreiber. And additionally, we have Amanda Simmons, an attorney who represents youth victims and institutional abuse and a survivor of the troubled teen industry as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Two minutes to each of your witness, please. Go ahead.
Good afternoon. My name is Zoe Schreiber, a troubled teen industry survivor and advocate. Alex Gaeta testified in Senate committee hearings but couldn't be here today and asked me to read her story for the record. I want to thank Alex for her bravery in sharing her experience. Her story is just one of countless children who disproportionately come from California who've had their lives and futures hardened by these practices. These are her words. On June 23rd, 2019 in Menlo Park. I was woken up before dawn by two strangers standing over my bed. They said they'd been hired by my parents to take me somewhere, but wouldn't say where. They told me not to resist or it would be worse for me later I was 14 I was terrified I wasn dressed I asked them to leave the room so I could get dressed They refused saying I was a flight risk and watched me I begged to say goodbye to my dog They said no Each of them grabbed one of my wrists and a shoulder I have a connective tissue disorder and they held me so hard my joints partially dislocated They marched me to a car, then to the airport, where they showed paperwork saying my parents had signed over temporary legal guardianship to them. When I asked to use the bathroom, the female transport followed me into the stall. I was a child with no history of dangerous behavior. I had straight A's. None of that mattered. It's been almost seven years, and I still have nightmares. I can't sleep in my childhood bedroom because it's true triggering. Nothing can undo what happened to me, but today you have the chance to make sure there are a few more stories like mine again. Thank you. On behalf of Alex, 1111 Media Impact and Survivor Advocates across the state and beyond, thank you for your consideration, and I urge an aye vote.
Thank you. All right, next witness, please.
Good afternoon, Chair and members. My name is Amanda Simmons. I'm a special education and school injury attorney, and I come to this issue with extensive experience on both the legal side as well as a lived-experienced advocate who has experienced institutional child abuse. I am here in strong support of SB 1190. This bill matters because private youth transport services have operated in California without real guardrails for far too long. For decades, children have described being taken from their homes in the middle of the night by strangers. As we just heard, many report being handcuffed, zip-tied, blindfolded, or otherwise forced into transport. These are not isolated stories. They are a pattern. And this trauma does not end when the transport does. Many survivors, as we just heard, carry it for many, many years. Nightmares, PTSD, anxiety, and a deep mistrust that follows them well into adulthood. Parents are harmed, too. Families never really understand the force, fear, and coercion that may be used on their children until long after. by which point the damage is done, including serious and lasting harm to the relationship between parent and child. The bottom line on this bill is simple. If a private company is going to transport a child for pay, there must be basic safety standards. There must be clear boundaries and real accountability. SB 1190 begins to provide that. It requires transport services to use trustline registered staff, get state permits, train on de-escalation and child abuse reporting, and obtain parental consent. And it bans some of the most horrific practices of all, blindfolds, hoods, and middle-of-the-night pickups. This bill is about dignity, safety, and accountability. It's an important step towards finally putting safeguards around an industry that has operated in the shadows of our state for far too long. I respectfully request your support on this very important bill.
Thank you. I want to thank your witnesses for coming in and sharing the stories. Now I'm going to ask if there are any members of the public who should testify in support of the bill. Please come with some microphone now if you wish to support the bill. Sylvia Taufik, and I support this bill. Hi, Haley Sugarman, and I support this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Now do we have any witnesses in opposition to the bill? Any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the bill, please come with some microphone. Seeing none, we're back to the committee and welcome to our new vice chair. something we were talking about. Any questions or comments? Yeah, first and foremost, I just want to say thank you to the author of this bill. I know you've made it part of your legacy and history here in the state of California to be a warrior for children and to be a warrior for the youth from what you done to make a child exportation felony here in the state to also what you doing to make sure that you protecting at youth that are going through some traumatic issues And so I always want to take the opportunity to just say thank you to the senator for a lot of the work that you've done, how hard you work those positions, and never take a no for an answer. So thank you. Thank you. I do have an eye recommendation for this bill. And I want to thank you for collaborating with me and my staff on this and inviting me on as a co-author with you. And I really do think the stories of trauma and abuse that are happening so often really shed a light in how egregious this unregulated industry is. And so we're finally creating that and structuring regulation. And I think it's really important to be able to work on, especially to protect our youth from these really long-lasting, traumatizing experiences. So I do have an eye recommendation. We don't yet have a quorum to advance the bill, but I'll let the author close to what you want to close. Again, thank you. Mr. Chair, thank you for your hard work and dedication to protect our youth. I really appreciate the collaboration and the eye recommendation. And at the appropriate time, I'd respectfully ask for an aye vote. All right. Thank you very much. We'll take that bill up when we have a quorum. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next, we'll go to file item 8, SB 1322 by Senator Richardson. I don't think I see any other senators here. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing us to scoot up a little bit with everything that's going on. Mr. Chairman, staff and members, it's a pleasure to come here before you to talk about SB 1332 tribal housing grants. Native Americans face significantly higher rates of homelessness and housing insecurity in California, with many lacking access to safe and affordable housing, not to mention health issues, water, utilities and property rights. To help address this issue, the California Department of Social Services, also known as CDSS, established the Community Care Expansion Program, CCE, which provides funding to expand housing facilities for individuals at risk of homelessness. However, the CCE program's tribal grant process remains cumbersome and complex, creating challenges in reconciling state regulations with tribal sovereignty. The CCE program also requires tribal grantees to provide real property despite the federal restrictions that often limits them from having actual ownership. This is a significant barrier to necessary housing resources. SB 1322 would require CDSS to align the CCE Program Tribal Grant Agreement with successful federal practices and exempt tribal grantees from providing real property when federal restrictions limit tribal property ownership. This bill also strengthens the department's tribal liaison role to ensure tribal sovereignty is consistently understood, incorporated, and honored. SB 1322 improves access to critical grant funds and advances California's commitment to addressing housing instability in tribal communities. With me here to testify today is Ileana Chavez director of the tribal programs with the California Coalition of Rural Housing Should I repeat myself No you got it That good Thank you so much I have your witness go two minutes now please Thank you. Thank you, committee members. My name is Liana Chavez. I'm the director of tribal programs at California Coalition for Rural Housing. I oversee the tribal initiatives for CCRH. On behalf of Annalie Trujillo from Paula Van Mission Indians, I'm here to testify and share their experience with the CCE program under CDSS. Paula was awarded $8.3 million under this grant program for assisted living facilities on trust land with 13 beds for elders. But it has taken two years for the award to be processed and get to a final funding agreement. The negotiation only was lengthened because the tribe was asked to put an $8.35 million land collateral from their trust land, which jeopardized the tribe's sovereignty. Paula has then had to use extensive funding resources and staff hours in order to negotiate the funding agreement with their lawyers to assure that their tribe in the project was being protected. The CCA program isn't built for tribes in mind, and so therefore we're just asking and seeing how we can remediate to make sure that the CCA program does fit the tribes accordingly and respects the tribal sovereignty. With this bill, we hope that we can streamline the program and eventually be able to have a ripple effect across CDSS and other programs that they want to have accessible to tribes. Our message is that we want to have the best practices and standards and have a mutual beneficial agreement for the state and for tribal governments and assure that they have a system that establishes a government to government foundation where tribal sovereignty is respected since tribes are a sovereign nation. And I hope that we can get your support in this bill. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, do we have any members of the public who wish to testify in support of the bill? Please comment to the microphone. Afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Alex Allen is on behalf of the Habomo Topomo of Upper Lake in support. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, Chris Lindstrom with the Tribal Business Alliance in support. Thank you. Now, do we have any witnesses in opposition? Any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to the bill? Seeing none, I'm going back to the committee for any questions or comments. Vice Chair? Yeah, I just want to thank again the Senator for bringing this forward. I actually have a tribe who had a similar situation that they brought up to me very recently. We looked into this, and there's already a solution for it. So I just wanted to make sure that I was thanking the Senator and look forward to moving this at the appropriate time. Thank you. All right. Well, I thank the Senator for bringing the bill forward, too, and ensuring that the tribal sovereignty is honored through the grant process. We are almost there, Coram, but I will allow the senator to close if you'd like. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. I just want to close, as the senator should have respectfully asking for an aye vote, but really deeper than that in this case. You know, the whole reason why programs are created are in order to help people. And when the federal grant system can do something in a far more efficient way, certainly the state should be able to follow. and we certainly shouldn't be delving into implications of sovereignty. So I respectfully request your understanding of that in support of this measure and helping us get across the line so tribal communities can take advantage of programs and funding that is rightfully due. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. We will take that measure up when we have quorum. Thank you. We'll go on to the next item. I think I see the author for a file item number four, SB 1109, Senator Alvarado, a good, So whenever you're ready, you can come up to present your bill. Thank you. I feel like I'm in high school with all my binders. All right. And before you go, Madam Secretary, let's establish a quorum. Lee? Here. Tonkipah? Here. Calderon? Here. El Khwari? Parky. Jackson? Celeste Rodriguez? Sanchez. Thank you. A quorum is established. All right, Senator, you may begin when you're ready. When you're ready. With the permission of the chair, I do have two bills to present. Am I able to present item number four and then subsequently item number seven? Yes. You want to start with item number four, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Great. Thank All right. So good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Today I'm presenting Senate Bill 1234.
This is the Accountability Before Custody Act or the ABC Act. This bill ensures that when a juvenile court is in a dependency case already orders a parent or guardian. Sorry, real quick. So you wanted to start with item number seven first. Oh, I'm sorry. Is that what you're saying? Did I do the wrong one? Yeah. Which one did you want to start with then? You want to start with One, two, three, four. No, let's start. We prefer 1109. Yes, yes. My witnesses are here for 1109. Okay. So you want to do 1109? Okay.
Well, let's do file item number 4SB1109. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Reset.
So good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Senate Bill 1109 is about ensuring that when we place our most vulnerable youth in treatment facilities, that those placements are actually safe, appropriate, and held to the highest standards of accountability. As someone who personally went through the foster care system, I know how important these programs are. Short-term residential therapeutic programs serve a critical role for youth with the highest behavioral and therapeutic needs. These are children who have experienced significant trauma and deserve safe environments where they can heal, not facilities with repeated serious violations. As this bill has moved through the legislative process, we have worked in good faith with the committee, community care licensing, providers, and the opposition. We have listened to concerns and made significant amendments, including accepting all the amendments in the Senate. Today, Senate Bill 1109 contains one simple provision. If a STERP receives five or more type A citations within a 12-month period, the Department of Social Services will conduct an annual license renewal review. This is all that the bill will do. This does not close facilities. It does not revoke licenses. It does not eliminate STERPs. It remains an essential part of California's child welfare system. It does not create new licensing violations. It does not change existing licensing standards. It simply requires the department to take another look before renewing the license of a facility that has repeatedly received the state's most serious licensing citations. To me, that is not burdensome. It is responsible. Unfortunately, we know exactly why this additional accountability is necessary. This legislation was prompted by concerns surrounding rite of passage operating in STIRPS in Alpine County, where county officials repeatedly raised concerns regarding youth safety, emergency response, and oversight. Originally this bill was written so that any county that did not have a high school or a hospital would be included in this legislation On the Senate side my colleagues asked us to expand it to all counties And even though this issue started in Alpine County, we saw the responsibility to include it throughout the state of California. So according to the California Department of Social Services' own community care licensing record, one rite of passage STERP in Alpine County had accumulated 10 Type A citations, while the other has accumulated 16 Type A citations. Members, this bill does not apply after one citation. It does not apply after two citations, or even three, or even four. It applies only after a facility has accumulated five or more of the state's most serious licensing violations within a 12-month period. That threshold was intentionally chosen because this bill is not aimed at providers making isolated mistakes. It's aimed at repeated patterns of serious noncompliance. Yet, according to the department's own records, these facilities have accumulated 10 and 16 type A citations. If repeated serious violations at that level do not warrant an additional annual review, I respectfully ask, what does? And these concerns did not begin yesterday. They've been documented for years. State reports have identified repeated deficiencies involving inadequate criminal background checks, unsafe facility conditions, failures to report required incidents, improper use of physical restraints, deficient staff training, and serious licensing violations. In one review, investigators found staff files missing criminal background clearances and required emergency intervention training. Before I can even volunteer to go on a field trip with my grandchild, I have to get a background check. But yet currently you can work to take care of some of the most vulnerable children in California and have a violation on file with no accountability. Some employees have not even completed the child abuse identification training. I mean, I don't know about you, but that is basic. before you work with children and understand how to care for a child and whether putting your hands on a child or speaking in a certain tone is abuse, you should not have access to our children. But yet, we've seen those violations repeatedly. Some have not even received CPR certifonia and not have CPR training. My babysitter has to have CPR training. But yet, in the state of California, you can work in a STIRPS, care for the most vulnerable children in California, and not have a CPR certification and have no repercussions. In another report, inspectors documented youth grievances being ignored or discarded. Failures to report allegations of abuse within required timelines, including physical abuse with broken lawful. These are in our own state reports. These are California's children. It's documented. These reports also describe unsafe living conditions, fire safety concerns. Alpine County is in the high WUI area. Safety concerns And when this is documented these are things like not having a smoke detector or a fire extinguisher That is happening in California STIRPs right now And repeated failures to meet the basic licensing requirements. These are not one isolated incidents. This is not one bad day. This is a pattern that has appeared in reports over many years. from reports issued in 1999 to findings in 2011, to the riots and public safety concerns at the Silver State Academy in 2015, to compliance findings in 2021, and even today, additional concerns continue to be raised involving right-of-passage operated facilities. So why do we need this bill? This is a bill that simply asks for more annual reviews. That if you are an organization like Rite of Passage, which we entrust our children to you, and you have repeated violations, type A, which are the most egregious in California, that that triggers an annual review. That's what we're asking for. Now, some of you might say, well, is this going to close doors for much needed stirps? That's not what it's intended to do. But if you're breaking kids' bones and you are hurting them in a way that they are supposed to be safe, then yeah, your doors should be closed. Because they're coming from homes of trauma. They're coming from histories of trauma. And if they can't be in a California stirrup and feel safe, then yeah, we need to figure out how to close those doors and keep the ones open for those who are serving kids. Since introducing this bill, we've continued to learn of additional incidents, including concerns raised publicly before the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors following a May 25, 2026 fire at the Rite of Passage operated facility. where a youth was allegedly responsible for igniting an administrative building. Now, you might ask yourself, how did he get to the administrative building? How did this youth get access to materials to ignite a fire? According to testimony shared at that hearing, nearby residents described longstanding concerns regarding the facility, including trespassing, property damage, and prior break-ins. Following the fire, residents raised concerns about debris removal activities, including allegations that burned materials such as electronics, plastics, and potentially hazardous materials for building may have been transported and stored or disposed of without permits. Residents also expressed concerns about environmental impacts, including potential runoff affecting wells and springs, ponds, and surrounding agriculture and wildlife areas, as well as frustration that local agencies reportedly issued enforcement actions that were not fully complied with. Why do we have regulations? Why do we have standards if we are not making sure that these facilities are meeting the most basic of those standards? An annual review could help to identify these issues and help to make these facilities safer. Additional testimony described a deteriorating sense of safety among neighboring property owners including elderly residents who stated that they no longer feel safe living adjacent to these facilities as well as concerns regarding notification practices when youth leave campus and repeated incidents involving stolen property and runaway youth Members, these are not abstract concerns. These are multiple violations of right of passage facilities throughout California, and there are many of them in my district and in your district. They reflect ongoing real-world impacts experienced by surrounding communities when facilities operate without sufficient accountability or enforcement consistency. We have the enforcement mechanisms, but we're not doing the job. This bill is not about one provider. It applies equally to every STERP in California. The overwhelmingly majority of providers are doing the difficult work every day on behalf of California's youth. I applaud them and I thank them because without them, I would not be here serving as state senator of Senate District 4. This bill does not affect those providers. Facilities that comply with licensing requirements will never be subjected to this provision. It's only the facilities that repeatedly receive the state's most serious licensing citations that would receive an additional annual review. And if a facility improves its performance and no longer meets the threshold, well, it returns the normal licensing process. This is accountability. It's not punishment. The opposition will argue that existing oversight is already sufficient. Well, children with broken bones and facilities that don't have adequately trained staff would argue against that. So respectfully, if existing oversight alone were sufficient, we would not continue seeing facilities accumulate these repeated type A citations year after year. Again, the most egregious. Senate Bill 1109 creates no new violations. It raises no new licensing standards. It imposes no new operational requirements. It simply creates one additional layer of review after repeated serious violations that have already occurred. We should not have to legislate the protection of our children. But when facilities repeatedly receive the state's most serious licensing citations while continuing to care for California's most vulnerable youth, this legislature has a responsibility to act. Every child that's placed in these facilities deserves adults who put their safety first. Every county deserves confidence that these facilities are being properly overseen, and every provider that is doing the right thing deserves to be distinguished from those who are not. This bill does not ask for us to choose between protecting providers and protecting children. We can and we should do both. Providers operating safely have nothing to fear from Senate Bill 1109. This bill asks only that facilities with repeated serious violations receive one, just one additional review before their licenses are renewed. Just one. I believe that that's the minimum standard for every one of us that we could support. Mr. Chair, I have with me today two witnesses in support of Senate Bill 1109, Alpine County Chief Probation Officer Brian Lurie and Calaveras County Chief Probation Officer Kim Craddock.
Thank you. I just want to note that two minutes each, unlike generally we provide to the main author. So two minutes each, please. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. My name is Brian Lowry. I serve as the Chief Probation Officer for Alpine County, home to two STRTPs. First, I support the mission of STRTPs, and I want them to succeed. They care for some of California's most vulnerable youth. Since the STRTP model was created, the landscape of California's juvenile justice system has changed. With realignment and the end of most out-of-state placements, California relies on STRTPs more than ever. As that responsibility has grown, so has the need for meaningful oversight. In Alpine County, over a five-year period, we've had 200 calls for law enforcement, calls for service in five years. When you add that up as a total, that's over 10% of the calls for law enforcement in the entire county. If you look at the budget, 10% of law enforcement budget over five years, you're talking about millions of dollars that have been spent responding to incidents that are at these facilities. strps in my jurisdiction have received numerous type a violations and continue to operate without meaningful review i'm concerned about the safety of the youth being served sb 1109 does not create new regulations or closed facilities it provides a reasonable level of accountability this approach is not unique across california government when facilities serving vulnerable populations demonstrate repeated serious safety violation, increased oversight follows. Whether it's nursing homes, residential care facilities, hospitals, juvenile facilities, schools, the principle is the same. Greater risk warrants greater review. Good oversight protects children, strengthens public confidence, and supports the many providers that are doing the right thing every single day. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Next witness, please. Good afternoon, Chair and members. My name is Kim Craddock, and I am the Chief Probation Officer of Calaveras County. Calaveras County is a very small rural county with limited resources. The importance of STRTPs to probation's goal of rehabilitating youth cannot be understated, but it is also important that the communities these programs reside in are able to provide the necessary support to ensure the safety of the youth. There are no psychiatric facilities nor juvenile detention facilities within Calaveras County. Calaveras County has four sheriff's deputies on patrol to cover 1,037 square miles. The response time to ROP is at least 20 minutes. That is a long time when a student has attempted to drown staff in a pool, threatened to stab staff with a piece of glass, carjacked an elderly neighbor, or has lit the administrative building on fire, as happened on May 25th. The road to ROP is long, windy, narrow, and steep, taking fire trucks even longer to respond. When residents in the area complained that ROP was removing fire debris, Code Enforcement and Environmental Health had no record of the demolition permits being issued or building materials being tested for asbestos, lead, or other hazardous materials. Code compliance noted students walking past the burn site without personal protective equipment and had a stop order work or order issued, but it was not followed. Further inspection revealed fencing around the burn site did not effectively restrict access In 2025 the Calaveras County Sheriff Department had 91 calls for service to ROP That 7 calls a month and 46 reports of runaway juveniles 3 children a month from a facility that houses only up to 16 youth. STRTPs are vital to the youth who receive services from them, but we must ensure communities surrounding STRTPs are able to provide the necessary support support when crisis arrives. With the oversight provided by community care licensing, when five or more violations within a year have occurred, we can better ensure youth, staff, and the community create a stronger and more stable program. Thank you.
All right, thank you. Now do we have any members of the public who wish to testify in support of the bill? Please come up to the microphone. Any witnesses in opposition to this bill? Any members of the public who wish to testify in opposition to this bill? Please come from chair have? Okay, go for it. Yeah, I just want to say again, thank you to the author of the bill. I know as there have been some changes that happened, especially when it comes to, you know, displacement for at-risk youth no longer can be moved out of state. I've seen that in Fresno County when I was there and some of the issues that were created through some of the legislative changes. But what we need to make sure is that when they have to remain in the state of California, that they're in safe spaces as well, especially if this is like their most impressionable time. So I know after five times of some egregious penalties, maybe we do have another look to see if they're the right individuals to do that. So just want to say thank you and thank you to my constituent from Calaveras County as well for being here. So thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. So I'll invite the author to close. Yes, I just want to thank you for allowing us to present here today. I just want to tell you, you probably cannot off the top of your head cite what a type A violation is. But in law, those citations are issued when there's deficiencies that pose a direct and immediate risk, direct and immediate risk to the health, safety or personal rights of children or non-minor dependents.
So these can be physical. They're harmful. They create severe emotional distress, physical harm. These are the most egregious of the egregious. When we're talking about abuse, missing medication, improperly implementing emergency care or physical restraints, these are the most egregious of egregious. So I do ask for this committee to consider an aye vote, and thank you for allowing me to present.
All right. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate you bringing this bill and your passion to it. I understand your intent of the bill. But right now CDSS does have the ongoing authority to regulate and to hold these facilities accountable. And without having a hone – in the past, this committee has also had targeted legislation trying to hold these providers accountable for egregious actions too. This licensing scheme, as it is right now, which is a bit vague in some parts, could still leave many children in limbo. If these facilities are closed, then these children don't have anywhere else to go. And I'd rather – I do, of course, encourage the senator to keep working on this issue, but I would encourage – is it an enforcement mechanism issue with CDSS as we do much of the time trying to get our departments to be more on top of their game? But I think rather than inventing a new regulatory licensing scheme, it's better off that we work on using CDSS as a tool to actually implement the regulations on hand as it is. That being said I am recommending a no recommendation on this bill and so I will not be supporting the bill today All right Do we have any motions Okay the bill was moved
Mr. Chair, respectfully for 20 years.
We're making a motion right now. We're doing a motion right now. Hold on. All right. The bill was probably moved, but seeing no second, then that motion fails. The bill does not proceed. All right. All right. Thank you. So do you want to go with your next bill? Item number seven, SB1234.
Chair, permission to share some literature.
Relate this bill? Yes. Okay. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Whenever you're ready.
I'll be moving forward with item number 7, Senate Bill 1234.
Go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Today I'm presenting Senate Bill 1234, the Accountability Before Custody Act, or the ABC Act. What I've passed out is a study that I'm going to be referencing in my presentation and is available for you. Senate Bill 1234 is an intentional child safety measure that's focused on a very specific circumstance in juvenile dependency proceedings. when a court is already evaluating whether a child can safely remain in or return to a home, and there are concerns related to fentanyl or opioid use by a parent or guardian. At its core, this bill is about ensuring that courts have the most complete and accurate information available when making some of the most consequential decisions in the child welfare system. Today, fentanyl presents a serious and growing threat to children across California. According to the December 2025 report that I passed out from the California Department of Public Health Substance and Addiction Prevention Branch, there were 15 California children ages 5 and under who died from fentanyl-related causes in 2023. Now, these weren't children that were addicted to fentanyl. These weren't children that were rehabilitated from using drugs. These were children ages 5 and under, most who were under the age of 2. The vast majority of these cases occurred in a home, and in many instances, another person was present. These are not abstract statistics. They reflect children dying in home environments where safety is assumed, often in the same settings where dependency courts are being asked to assess risk and make life-altering decisions. The same report also underscores the extreme potency of fentanyl, noting that it is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, meaning even very small exposure can be fatal, particularly for young children. Senate Bill 1234 responds to this reality in a specific way. It does not expand the court's jurisdiction. It does not create new dependency pathways, and it does not alter reunification standards. It simply ensures that when a juvenile court has identified a risk of fentanyl or opioid use, fentanyl is included in the drug testing that the court already has determined to be appropriate. This helps ensure that when fentanyl is part of the risk picture it is not inadvertently missed at the point where courts are making critical child safety determinations We heard concerns from stakeholders about clarity and implementation and I happy to have worked with this committee and will be accepting the committee proposed amendments. The committee amendments will be accepting help to address that by more clearly grounding risk of fentanyl use in observable indicators such as prior positive test, credible statements or testimony, possession of fentanyl or opioid-related paraphernalia, or a documented professional assessment indicating signs or behavior consistent with use. These clarifications reinforce that this is not an arbitrary standard, but one based on evidence already commonly used in dependency court decision-making. Senate Bill 1234 takes a common-sense approach to a serious and ongoing threat. It ensures that when courts are already engaged in evaluating child safety, Ventanil is not overlooked in that process and where their risks are identified families are connected to appropriate support With the committee's amendments accepted this bill reflects a more precise and balanced approach that strengthens child safety while incorporating practical prevention tools
And with me today to tell her story All right, thank you two minutes, please Hi, my name is Corinne Frostick and I'm here in full support of Senator Maria Alvarado-Gills SB1234. Our lives and family were forever changed on May 9, 2022, when my precious 15-month-old granddaughter passed away following my son's relapse. Charlotte was a beautiful girl with the sweetest smile. She was a perfect toddler, curious, inquisitive, and just beginning to talk. Charlotte absolutely adored her parents, and she was the light in their world. She had her 50-month well baby checkup just days before her death and was a perfectly healthy and happy girl beating all the expected milestones. Nothing appeared wrong. The loss of Charlotte has shaken our family to its core. There are empty places at every family gathering from Sunday dinners to birthdays and holidays. I'm also holding a picture of Liam Savoy O'Neill alongside Charlotte. Liam and his father Patrick both lost their lives to fentanyl a few years before Charlotte in our same hometown. At the time, I could not fathom how such a thing could happen, but I've come to understand that addiction is an awful disease. It doesn't discriminate, and it does not care who is caught in the crosshairs. And it's absolutely important to emphasize that the parents of Charlotte and Liam were and are good people, parents struggling with an awful disease. Although this bill would not have saved Charlotte or Liam, both parents had been clean and relapsed, unbeknownst to family members, I am in full support of SB1234. What this has shown me is that sometimes the risk to a child is not visible. Even when concerns are being assessed through the system, this is why this bill matters. When a child is being returned to home within a juvenile dependency case, where a court has already found a risk of fentanyl or opioid use, based upon defined criteria, ensures that fentanyl is included in drug testing when testing is already required. Fentanyl is a difference. It is fast, it is deadly, and without testing for it, a serious risk to an innocent child can be missed. SB 1234 also ensures that when a risk is identified in these cases, courts and social workers have clear standards for assessing fentanyl and opioid exposure and that the risk determination is based on defined indicators such as prior positive tests, credible statements, possession of paraphernalia or professional assessment, and that families receive basic safety information and resources, including safe storage guidance and access to fentanyl test strips, and education through existing state programs. So today, I stand here to support the ABC Act wholeheartedly. My goal is to save innocent children and help prevent other families from experiencing similar tragedies and to raise awareness about the devastation that addiction causes. Thank you for your time and consideration. God bless you. Thank you, and I want to thank you for coming to share your story and your granddaughter's life in store with us as well. Thank you. All right. Do we have any members of the public who testify in support of the bill? Please come into the microphone. Any witnesses opposition to the bill, please come forward. Also, Senator, there's some tissues right there in front of you if you want to pass. Thank you. All right. Two minutes each, please. Thank you chair members of the committee gray Gardner on behalf of the drug policy alliance for nearly three decades DPA has worked in California and across the country to advance health centered approaches to drugs and drug use that reduce harm support families and move away from ineffective and harmful punitive responses. Before I address this bill, I do want to express our sincere condolences to the family who shared the story today. Losing a loved one is a devastating tragedy, and we honor the courage in coming forward today and being here with us. I, too, am a parent, and many of us who do oppose this bill are parents. I believe we all ultimately share the same goal, keeping our loved ones, our communities, and especially our young people safe, healthy, and connected to the support that they need. Unfortunately, this bill, SB 1234, does not advance those goals. The bill creates a new statute of use. While we appreciate the amendments that begin defining what evidence may establish and emphasis on may establish that risk, it invites inconsistent and biased applications. Disproportionate impacts on. Raising serious concerns about enforcement of who is being tested and why. SB 1234 is also redundant. Courts already have the authority and discretion to order drug testing. This bill does not demonstrate why the existing authority is inadequate or how this new requirement would improve the safety or family outcomes. In addition, the bill singles out fentanyl in a way that's unprecedented in law, in juvenile dependency law in particular. No comparable provision requires testing based on the risk of a specific substance. creating a fentanyl specific trigger risks expanding unnecessary testing, increasing court involvement, and imposing additional costs on families and impacts on families in the dependency system without evidence that it will better protect children. We do support policies that strengthen family stability, promote well-being, and help children thrive safely at home. This bill undermines those objectives, and for these reasons, we respectfully oppose 1234 and urge a no vote. Thank you. Next witness, please. Michael Hefty Law Office of or excuse me the Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers I was previously with the Law Office of Martin Lee as a trial counsel I currently a writ attorney in the court of appeal representing parents in the juvenile dependency system I do want to reiterate the point with respect to the bill not actually providing any additional authorities that the court didn't already have, but I wanted to testify with respect to my experience with fentanyl cases as trial counsel in the juvenile dependency court. I would urge the committee to amend the bill to adopt the language that was proposed in the most recent analysis, specifically with respect to risk of use as being indicated by including other factors, a past positive test for use or use test that demonstrated use. but in my experience, the juvenile court is already very careful when it comes to fentanyl. I had a case where the parents in the case were, it was more distinctly proven that they were manufacturing fentanyl. There was no clear evidence that they were ever using before the investigation started and all of their drug tests came out clean prior to adjudication and post adjudication, but the juvenile court still ordered fentanyl testing for those parents over the objection of parents' counsel because there was no demonstrated use, even through collateral witnesses. I don't think now that I'm working in the court of appeal that a court of appeal would overrule such a finding, demonstrating that all parties concerned are very aware of risks that fentanyl poses to children. And especially in Los Angeles County, but I'm sure in much smaller counties, the attempts to protect children are already very well established through fentanyl testing. So I would just oppose the bill without the specific amendments that were suggested in the most recent analysis. Thank you very much. Now, do we have any members of the public who should testify in opposition to the bill? Please come forward to the microphone. Shivani Nishar on behalf of Drug Policy Alliance, registering opposition for the San Francisco Public Defenders Office, Community Works, and the Youth Justice Coalition. Thank you. All right. Let's bring it back to committee for questions, comments, and discussion for members. Mr. Weissher. Thank you. I'm going to respectfully push back against the opposition because this is a one sentence bill. It's literally a one sentence bill. It says this bill would require a juvenile court that finds a risk of fentanyl use by a parent or guardian to order the parent or guardian to submit to testing for fentanyl. There's one sentence. That if they find that a parent or there is a risk of fentanyl use in a home, that they have to be tested. That is the one sentence, Bill, that you're arguing that is overly burdensome. I think for people who come from families of heavy addiction or have grown up in it, which I have. My family, I grew up in heavy addicts. That if you could protect siblings or other kids, we should do something about that. And not only that, fentanyl has killed more people in the last 10 years than all American wars combined. All American wars combined in the last 10 years especially when it comes to drug overdose I don think that this is something that we could say is overly burdensome for our system When 107 people die in 2024 is that not enough to say we should take action when one child is poisoned because they have found risk of fentanyl in a home I don't think that's overly burdensome at all. And I just think it's insane that something as simple that when you find evidence of drugs, that it requires the parents to simply take a test. And they're the ones who have the ability to lose their child because they will either lose them to the courts or they lose their lives. That's all this bill does. So with that, I motion to move this bill. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from members? If not, oh, okay. Thank you for your presentation and thank you for sharing your story. I just had one question about risk of fentanyl use and how that is defined. Because I think we all do agree we want to do everything we can to protect children. So I was just wondering if that is going to be further refined as you move this bill forward. Thank you for the question. So this bill wouldn't further refine it because it's defined within the juvenile court system already. The determination can be made, although certain counties include fentanyl as part of their screening. Some don't. So it's inconsistent across California. So with this bill, what we would say is the counties that are already implementing this, we would implement it across all California. The judge has the authority and the discretion to order this with all the evidence presented in front of them. So that's why we're not changing the law. We're strengthening it to protect kids. So I don't know if you saw the packet that I sent. So California spent quite a bit of money for the California Department of Public Health to do this study because we had 15 dead children in four years. So the system has cracks. The system is not working because we have 15 dead babies that were exposed to fentanyl. And these 15 babies were in the system. Thank you. And thank you for clarifying that you're creating consistency. That's right. And just for Assemblymember Rodriguez's information, on page seven of the analysis, we have the proposed amendments, which the author accepted. And so the first bullet point may be more helpful to your question as well to address the amendments. Assemblymember El-Hawari? I just wanted to offer, like, similarly have, like, addiction history in my family. My cousin recently passed away with fentanyl overdose. But I think what often happens when we incorporate these types of requirements in a judicial system that has often shown unintended biases against communities and especially communities of color, I think it just becomes an undue burden on certain folks versus others. And I think we have to be mindful of that as well. Thank you. Well, I think addiction is a very difficult and complex disease. And I find offense in that only people of color use fentanyl or are exposed to addiction. I know many of the angel families that I work with would disagree. What we have found is that when someone is navigating through addiction, it is very, very difficult. We know the success rate is very low. And when you are charged with the life of another human being, a child, we must do everything that we can. There are reported incidents where we have parents that are undergoing drug screening and they know they not being screened for fentanyl So if you not being screened for fentanyl and you a drug addict and you want the high then isn't it best to use a drug that you're not being screened for so that you don't violate? This is the reality. So nowhere in this bill does it say that it only pertains to black and brown people. Um, nowhere on the fentanyl pill does it say it only poisons brown, brown and black people, um, with the recognition that our system is plagued with, um, disparities in race and ethnicity. And, um, I kindly ask for an aye vote on this. All right. I'll take that as your close, Senator. Um, well, I, well, I want to thank you for working with my staff on the amendments. I think to some of the opposition's points, we provide a lot more nuance and context to the process. So working in collaboration with the Assembly of the Judiciary Committee works on some of those to bring more nuance to it. So I hate to break it to the vice chair. The bill will no longer be just one sentence changed. It will be a lot longer than one sentence. But we have put in some of the amendments. And with those amendments and more context and nuance, again, to the bill, I do think it is important to address the presence and risk of fentanyl to especially young ones. So I do think with the amendments that we have today and that you agreed to, I do have a do pass as amended, high recommendation. So, oh, we don't yet have a second on this. Okay. All right. The bill has been moved by Vice Chautama, seconded by Assemblyman Sanchez. Welcome to committee. Madam Secretary, please call the roll. File item 7, SB 1234. The motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Lee? Lee, aye. Tongapah? Aye. Tongapah, aye. Calderon? Aye. Calderon, aye. Elwhore? Not voting. Elwhore not voting. Jackson? Rodriguez? Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Sanchez? Aye. Sanchez, aye. Five to zero. That bill's out. We'll leave the roll open for EPSA members. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. If appropriate, may I ask for reconsideration on file item number 4, SB1109. Thank you. The motion for consideration isn't necessary because the motion to move it failed, so the bill is just being held in the committee. Okay. All right, let's move on to Senator Menjivar, who has two bills, so I'll let her decide which one she wants to do. Which? All right, let's start with SB991, which is file item number two. Are you dressed for a sporting event or something? I mean, show us. The Salvadorian is very excited for the Mexico game. um mr chair uh committee members here to present my first vote sp 991 current oh mr chair can i start okay currently right now uh you might be looking to place your uh your mom your dad your loved one in a residential care facility and you're wondering which is the best place to place them in and you'll go on the website to see hey is this uh is this a good place are there any violations at this place where I'd like to place my loved one. Well, you'd find that there is a report of what kind of violations, well, not really of places that have violations, but they're not specific to what actually happened at the facility. They're categorized broadly as a violation of someone's rights. So whether a center has a rat infestation or an elder person was experienced elder abuse or was financially abused and scammed of $35,000, those nuances are not included of what kind of violation. I think that kind of transparency is really important for the public to know and to see the different kind of residential care facilities that exist. Enter SB 911 that would then, should it pass, allow for these specific kind of violations to exist on the current website. So it's not creating a brand new website. The website already exists, and now the violation will include the actual type of violation and not just say that it was a violation of residents' rights. We want to make sure that we improve how these reports of abuse and neglect are categorized on the Department of Social Services and their public-facing licensing enforcement database. Because the current umbrella category doesn't allow for family members looking for a facility to clearly know what the type of violation is occurring. With that, Mr. Chair, I'd like to turn over to my first witness here in support of this bill. Thank you. Two minutes each, please. Hi, my name is Rachel Tate. I am a clinical social worker and the vice president of Ombudsman Services for Wise and Healthy Aging, a nonprofit organization that provides the ombudsman program in Los Angeles City, Los Angeles County, and San Bernardino County. Victims of abuse routinely find themselves dismissed, denigrated, and invalidated by their abusers. Individuals who require the care and services of a residential care facility find themselves particularly vulnerable to this treatment. Regulatory and enforcement agencies often place more value on statements from those around the victims than from the victims themselves. Common thinking is that, after all, they need to be in care, so they must be mistaken or they must be confused. In Senate District 20, residents in an assisted living facility were asked about their treatment by community care licensing. Resident 1 was able to confirm that a staff member hit them in the back of the head, top of the head, and kicked them. Resident 2 confirmed the same staff member choked them. This was all witnessed by Resident 3. Resident 4 confirmed the same staff member grabbed and pulled them by their hand and pushed them against a chair. Resident 5 suspects that they were hit in the back of the head by the staff member because that staff member was around them at the time, but cannot confirm because when they turned their wheelchair around, the staff member was no longer there. Licensing staff was able to confirm that the resident five sustained physical injuries. The citation for this incident reads that there was a residence rights violation in that the administrator failed to provide an environment free from abuse. The situation does not unequivocally say that multiple residents were in fact assaulted and abused by their staff member. It is imperative that we vote aye on this bill to honor and respect the lived experiences of long-term care residents that are dependent on the state for their very protection. Thank you. Next witness, please. Two minutes. Good afternoon, Chair, members of the committee. My name is Jason Sullivan Halpern, and I'm the director of the California Long-Term Care Ombudsman Association, or CALCOA, the sponsors of SB991. Abuse and neglect are among the most common complaints reported to California local long care Ombudsman programs Last year ombudsmen received 2 complaints involving abuse and RCFEs nearly as many as all care-related complaints combined. The year prior, abuse was the single most common complaint category reported in these facilities. When abuse is suspected, mandated reporters are required to report it using the same definitions in the Welfare and Institutions Code the bill cites. Ombudsmen who receive and investigate these reports alongside the department must also categorize allegations according to the type of abuse involved. However, when the department substantiates abuse and it publishes its findings on its transparency website, those violations are often reported broadly as violations of residents' rights to be free from abuse, not as abuse. As a result, consumers, families, advocates, and policymakers often cannot tell what type of abuse occurred or identified patterns. A citation for a violation of the right to be free from abuse does not clearly communicate whether a resident was physically assaulted, financially exploited, sexually abused, neglected, abandoned, or abandoned. Victims and their families deserve greater transparency. SB 991 requires the department to identify the specific type of abuse demonstrated by the evidence when it substantiates a violation and to display that information on the public-facing databases it already maintains. The bill does not change reporting requirements, investigations, burdens of proof, enforcement authority, or appeal rights. Licensing program analysts are already trained to investigate abuse using the same statutory definitions. SB 991 simply ensures that when abuse is substantiated, the department communicates those findings more clearly to the public using information it already collects. We respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any members of the public who should testify in support of the bill? Please come up to the microphone. Good afternoon. Brooke Benetti in support on behalf of the California Low Income Consumer Coalition. Good afternoon, Chair and members of this committee. My name is Eduardo Rubalcaba with AARP on behalf of 3.2 million AARP members here in California in strong support of SB 991. Thank you. Now, do we have any witnesses in opposition to the bill? Any members of the public who should find opposition to the bill? Please come forward. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the committee for any questions or comments. All right, the bill has been moved and seconded. I'll invite the author to close. A recent report by the Public Policy Institute of California states that by 2040, the number of seniors who are going to be in these institution residential facilities is going to increase by 51%. It's not more than ever important to ensure there are added guardrails to protect our seniors in these homes, respectfully asking for an eye of vote. Thank you. Thank you, Senator, for bringing the bill forward. It's so important to – it can be such an overwhelming process for older adults to look for care, and I think having more transparency and information for them is so vital. And I look forward to supporting this bill. It enjoys a high recommendation from me, and it was moved by Assemblyman Calderon, seconded by Assemblyman Rodriguez. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on file item number two. File item number two, SB 991. The motion is due pass to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Lee? Lee, aye. Tongapaw? Aye. Tongapaw, aye. Calderon? Aye. Calderon, aye. Elhwari? Aye. Elhwari, aye. Jackson? Rodriguez? Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Sanchez? Aye. Sanchez, aye. Six to zero. That bill's out. We'll leave the roll open for absent members. All right. Let go on to file item number six SV1200 Mr Chair colleagues from talking about seniors to now talking about our youngest ones it a spectrum of issues that you are working on All deserve our attention. We all recognize here in the legislature that the need for child care slots and spaces has been a long fight, not just for the Legislative Women's Caucus, but for so many individuals. And while we were so glad that we expanded through TK, the unintended consequence that happened there is that our at-home child care family centers took a big hit because their bread and butter was with those four-year-olds that they were taking care of that now switched over to schools. and because we have a locked set amount of how many infants they can care for that are ages between zero and 24 it is difficult for them to open more slots up for infant care even though that is where the greatest need is i think the assembly member from the san fernando valley assembly rodriguez can tell you as an in she has an infant the need to find a care for that age group. There are various states, there are various published evidence-based practices and healthcare advocates that define infant either above the age of 12 months or above the age of 18 months, as do other states. But here in California, we define it between the ages of 0 24. A 24-month-old is walking and oftentimes is talking. It's very different in terms of the developmental needs of a seven-month-old or an eight-month-old. So we want to allow, should a at-home family care provider have the capacity to care for more infants, to define here in California zero to 18 as an infant. Some of our child care centers already define it of 018 as the sub chair on health and human services. I've dived in so much into child care on this, and we want to see if we can align this to also define infants for their kind of provider facilities. With that, I'd like to turn it over to my two witnesses. All right, two minutes. Thank you. Two minutes each, please. And I guess I am going to ask you about SB 1200. So tell me about this bill. That's fantastic, Mr. Lee, because I would love to tell you about it. Thank you, chair and members. My name is Rebecca Grasty. I am a California credential teacher. My degree is in social science and additionally home economics. I've been a family child care provider for 16 years since the recession. As a co-founder of Save California Family Child Care, I'm a proud sponsor of SB 1200. For racial purposes only, this bill defines an infant as a child younger than 18 months. Our homes are not static classrooms with one age of child that resets every year. They're unique mixed age environments where research proves children thrive. I've watched only children who are behind developmentally become motivated to reach their next developmental stage simply by consistently having access to an environment to watch older peers. Our care is the most versatile, culturally and linguistically responsive and widespread, but there are still child care deserts. When parents can't access child care, they drop out of the workforce, the economy suffers, or they turn to unlicensed care that lacks our training, inspections, and certificates. Families are desperate because our ratio brackets are stuck in 1982. Neither the term toddler nor preschool exists in Title 22 that governs family child care homes Neither of those two words exist Despite 40 years of research we are doing a disservice to children 18 to 24 months who can walk self climb communicate and put their own shoes on and by treating them as if they're newborns who can't roll over or hold a bottle. Keeping them in the infant ratio they've outgrown locks actual newborns out of care. Family child care providers live in actual practice the reality of child development every day and science backs our expertise. The AAP, the NIH, the CMA, CDPH, CDC, CA, CFP define children as infants under 12 months. The APA, NAEYC, and the California Department of Education define them as under 18 months. I respectfully ask for your aye vote and can answer any questions. Thank you. Hi, my name is Rita Ferrando. I am a child care provider in Alameda. I'm a large provider, meaning I can have the most children in family child care. And I'm reading a letter on behalf of a parent. Hello, my name is Esmeralda Chavaria, and I am a resident of Vallejo. I am a mother of three children, a four-year-old, a 21-month-old, and a two-month-old. I currently work as a family advocate for a nonprofit that works in partnership with other local agencies to promote quality child care, literacy, family support, and parent involvement. This is a role that is deeply meaningful to me because it allows me to support family during some challenging times, connecting them to resources, helping them during difficult times, and helping them build stability. In my job, I see firsthand the daily struggles of mothers that mothers face to find child care, especially when trying to keep siblings together. Ironically, I am now facing the exact same struggle. For the past three years, I have relied on Lippity Papillon, whom I absolutely adore. She has created a safe, nurturing environment, and I want all of my children to go to her. Because California has outdated rage regulations, my two-month-old cannot attend with my current provider on the date I need to return to work, since my two-month-old is treated the same as my 21-month-old. That is exactly why I am supporting the passage of SB 1200. This places me in an incredibly difficult situation. Lepeti Papillon provides care for my middle child and after-school care for my eldest. If my two-month-old cannot also enroll with her, I will be forced to take my three children to three different locations in the morning every single day. Infant care is so limited that parents are often not put on the wait list until the child is born, leaving working mothers stranded. I must return to work to provide for my family, and this system adds severe financial and emotional stress to an already overwhelming time. SB 1200 represents an important step towards addressing this kind of outdated regulations in the child care system. Families should not have to choose between their livelihood and trusted care. I respectfully urge you to support SB 1200. Sincerely, Esmeralda Chavaria. Do we have any members of the public in the hearing room here to testify in support? Move the bill. Thank you. Do we have any primary witnesses in opposition? Do we have any members in the public who wish to testify? Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Adalia King. I represent UDW, ASME Local 3930. I'm here on behalf of the Child Care Providers United, representing over 70,000 child care providers throughout the state of California. I would want to preface this that opposition is really aggressive. It's not opposition. I just want to flag the fact that we found that there might be a possible conflict and we reached out to the author. And I also want to uplift the fact that she is a fearless advocate for us. So this is extremely friendly. We wanted to make sure that all the I's are dotted and T's are crossed. So we look forward to continue working with her, but we wanted to make sure that the committee was aware as well. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions from committee members? Seeing none, I just want to personally thank you for working on an issue like this. I'm just like the mom you read about when I found out I was pregnant. I actually called my child care provider for my older daughter to tell her that I needed the space in a few months because that's how it is. It's really challenging to find access, and it's a big issue that a lot of the legislators here are working on to make it affordable and accessible for all of us. We have a – the chair recommends an iVote. We have a motion in a second. I'd like to invite the author to close before we do a roll call. Thank you so much. I mean, child care continues to be a huge priority for so many Californians. It's an affordability issue. It's an equity issue. It's an access issue. One day we'll get it right. I'm grateful that we've included funding in our budget to move a step forward with this bill. We will not change the ability to serve more children, but rather simply ask the ability to serve children that they can within the parameters of a safe staffing ratio, respectfully asking for an aye vote. Thank you. We have a motion by Owari, a second by Assemblymember Calderon. Madam Secretary, please call the roll. File Item 6, SB1200. The motion is due passed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Lee? Aye. Lee, aye. Tongapa? Aye. Tongapa, aye. Calderon? Aye. Calderon, aye. Elhuari? Aye. Elhuari, aye. Jackson? Aye. Jackson, aye. Rodriguez? Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Sanchez? Aye. Sanchez, aye. 7-0. That bill is out. Congratulations. All right. All right. Let's go to our final bill presentation. File item number 9, SB 1345 by Senator Wahab. Good afternoon. SB 1345, the Foster Youth Dignity and Respect Act, is an important expansion to the Foster Youth Bill of Rights. Foster care placement is a traumatic experience. When a youth is placed in foster care, they're physically removed from their family, placed in an unknown environment, and most are shuffled between housing placements up to three to five times a year. Placement transitions are often carried out in ways that compound harm by disrupting a foster youth's sense of identity, belonging, and well-being. Across the state, youth report wearing the same clothes for weeks and forced to pack their belongings in trash bags, which are often lost, damaged, or left behind. While existing law provides storage space for private use it fails to clearly establish that youth must maintain reasonable access to that storage and lax requirements on belongings should how they should be handled These practices undermine a foster youth control over their daily life, send a harmful message to youth about their worth, and impact their long-term outcomes. Foster youth do deserve better. SB 1345 establishes a clear and enforceable right to reasonable access and dignified transportation of belongings, emphasizing that foster youth deserve respect like any other child. I specifically want to share that I am a former foster youth. I have my doctorate in social work. My sister is a social worker in emergency response. Thank you. And I really want to highlight that as much as we talk about adoption and we talk about how the foster care system protects children. It also, as I stated, compounds harm and trauma in different ways. From bouncing from home to home to home to home, literally all your belongings tossed in a black trash bag in the back of somebody's car, that is all you remember. And oftentimes you are not allowed to take all of your belongings. I specifically remember this and was very surprised that nearly 30 years later, this still exists in California law. It's really disappointing. We have a long way to go in social services across the board, county per county. This bill, I do want to highlight that we have worked with the counties to make it reasonable for them and manageable at the same time. We have not overprescribed anything to say it has to be a suitcase and has to be this size or that size or anything like that. We are literally just saying, please, for the love of God, find a way to allow that child to have some dignity in this process as they are removed from maybe a violent situation or harmful situation into a situation where they are unsure and unclear of what is even going on. So with me to testify, I have Chantel Johnson, director, directing advocate and legal apprentice with the Youth Law Center. Thank you. Your witness is two minutes, please. Yeah, absolutely. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. My name is Chantel Johnson, and I am here today on behalf of the Youth Law Center, proud sponsor of SB 1345. In addition to being an advocate, I myself am also a former foster youth and a foster parent, adoptive parent. So SB 1345 is deeply personal to me. I'd like to begin with the story of Erin Cluse, a former foster youth who shared her story in support of the bill. When Erin was just 16 years old, she was removed from her home and placed 500 miles away in a group home. She arrived with everything she owned packed in a trash bag. After experiencing additional placement disruptions and homelessness, she eventually aged out. Once again, her belongings were packed into garbage bags and she was dropped off in LA, never hearing from anyone from the system again. Looking back, Erin says, it wasn't just about the trash bags, it was about what they represented. She told us, my takeaway from these experiences is I don't matter. My life doesn't matter. Nobody cares about me. I'm invisible, unwanted, and unloved. Today, as a parent herself, she reflects on how these experiences followed her into adulthood, leaving her with almost nothing from her own childhood to pass on to her children. Her story reminds us that the way we treat children's belongings sends a powerful message about how we value children. SB 1345 is about ensuring that children in foster care are treated with dignity and respect. It strengthens the foster care bill of rights by clarifying that foster youth have and deserve the right to maintain reasonable access to use of their personal belongings, clothing, and personal items while in placement. It also makes clear that when placement changes occur, those belongings must be transported in a matter that preserves the child's dignity. SB 1345 does not impose burdensome new mandates. Many caregivers and counties already treat the youth with dignity and respect This legislation simply establishes a clear statewide expectation that every foster youth deserves access to their own belongings and deserves to be treated with respect California can and should send a different message. California has already made tremendous progress in recognizing the rights of children and youth in foster care. SB 1345 builds on that commitment by making clear that dignity is reflected not only in the decisions we make, but in the everyday experiences of young people in our care. Every child deserves to know that they matter and the state is entrusted with their care, will treat them and their belongings with respect. On behalf of the Youth Law Center, we respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you. Now do we have members of the public who should decide in support of the bill? Please come into the microphone. Good afternoon, Amanda Kirchhoff on behalf of the County Welfare Directors in support. Michaela Sormento, law clerk from the Children's Law Center in support. Thank you. Now, do we have any witnesses in opposition? Oh, do we? Okay. Do we have any members of the public who should testify in opposition? Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the committee. I'd like to move the bill. Oh, okay. Assemblyman Alahori. I just really want to thank you for bringing this forward. I'm a foster mom to a young girl who was 17 when she was removed. I remember the day that she talked about putting everything in a trash bag and not even knowing where she was going to go and just the horror of that, the trauma that will never leave you. I think the vulnerability that you shared with us today appreciates you for carrying this bill and the work that you're doing and just the importance of really ensuring that young people who are in foster care have dignity. I've heard that if there are social workers who are connected to folks with resources, they're not even allowed to take the luggage and use that for the children because it's in statute that we have to use trash bags that is crazy and so thank you for really pushing us um outside of that so that we could do something real for these young people all right seeing no more i'll invite the author to close thank you um i actually will highlight the fact that this type of um you know experience kind of sits with you uh i'm one of those people that are very much minimalist i i don't care for an office i don't care for the space i don't care to decorate i i just literally know that if anytime i need to get up and go i have to and I think it largely stems from childhood experience. So it's sad that we have to have a law to say, give some dignity to the youth. And again, I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you. I want to thank the Senator and the sponsors for carrying this bill, bringing this bill forward and always for the Senator fighting for our foster youth. So I do have an aye recommendation on this bill and this bill was moved by Assembly Member Rodriguez and seconded by Assembly Member Sanchez. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on file item number nine. File item nine, SB 1345. The motion is due pass to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Lee? Aye. Lee, aye. Tongapaw? Aye. Tongapaw, aye. Calderon? Aye. Calderon, aye. Elhwari? Aye. Elhwari, aye. Jackson? Aye. Jackson, aye. Rodriguez? Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Sanchez? Aye. Sanchez, aye. Seven of zero. That bill is out. All right, members, that is all the bill presentations, but we still have some bills that did not have motions, and we haven't yet moved the consent calendar. Can someone move the consent calendar for us? Second. Consent calendar is moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll on the consent calendar? Measures on the consent calendar. File Item 1 SB 534 Padilla File Item 10 SB 1410 Limon File item 11 SB 1421 McGuire On the consent calendar Lee Aye. Lee, aye. Tongapa. Aye. Tongapa, aye. Calderon. Aye. Calderon, aye. Elhwari. Aye. Elhwari, aye. Jackson. Aye. Jackson, aye. Rodriguez. Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Sanchez. Aye. Sanchez, aye. 7 to 0, consent calendar is approved. I believe, well, let's also go back and through file item order and also add on EPSA members. So let's go with file item number two, SB 991. Menjavar. File item two, SB 991. The current vote is six to zero. Jackson? Aye. Jackson, aye. Final vote, seven to zero. All right, file item number three, we need a motion for that one. Move. Second. SB 1099 by Reyes is moved by Assemblymember Jackson, seconded by Assemblymember Calderon. Madam Secretary, please call the roll. File Item 3, SB 1099. The motion is due pass. Lee? Aye. Lee, aye. Tongapa? Not voting. Tongapa not voting. Calderon? Aye. Calderon, aye. El Huari? Aye. El Huari, aye. Jackson? Aye. Jackson, aye. Rodriguez? Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Sanchez? Aye. Sanchez, aye. 6-0. That bill is out. Let's go to file item number five. This one needs a motion, too, right? File item number five, SB 1190 by Grove needs a motion second. All right. The SB 1190 has been moved by Assemblyman Tongipa, second by Assemblyman Al-Hawari. Madam Secretary, please call the roll. File Item 5, SB 1190. The motion is due pass to the Assembly Communications and Conveyance Committee. Lee? Aye. Lee, aye. Tongapaw? Aye. Tongapaw, aye. Calderon? Aye. Calderon, aye. Elhwari? Elhwari, aye. Jackson? Aye. Jackson, aye. Rodriguez? Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Sanchez? Aye. Sanchez, aye. 7-0. That bill is out. Let's go to File Item 6. Do we have to add anyone from 6? No? Okay, let's go to file item number 7, SB1234. File item 7, SB1234. The current vote is 5-0. Jackson? Aye. Jackson, aye. Final vote, 6-0. And then file item number 8, SB1322, needs a motion and a second. Moved. Second. SB1322 is improperly moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, please call the roll on this bill. File item 8, SB 1322. The motion is due passed to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Lee? Aye. Lee, aye. Tongapaw? Aye. Tongapaw, aye. Calderon? Aye. Calderon, aye. El Horry? El Horry, aye. Jackson? Jackson, aye. Rodriguez? Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Sanchez? Aye. Sanchez, aye. 7-0. That bill is out. May I do a quick question? All right, vote changes if members need vote changes. Vote change SB 1099, aye to no. Vote change, file item 3, SB 1099, Sanchez, aye to no. Final vote on that bill, 5 to 1. All right. Business before the Assembly Human Services Committee is complete. The hearing is now adjourned. However, we will now transition to our overview. Oversight hearing. So we will convene our oversight hearing in just a minute, but I'll invite Assemblyman Pellerin to join me up here on the dais and Assemblyman Gibson when he arrives. I feel familiar, but I know it's really bad right now. Like, what feel are you doing? Yeah, like, that's crazy. Can we present it? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to today's outcomes review oversight hearing for the Assembly Human Services Committee. This hearing will be covered in two parts, with Part 1 discussing AB 2247 from 2018 by Assemblymember Mike Gibson, followed by Part 2, which will cover AB 2496 by Assemblymember Pellerin from 2024. for. Following each part, the public will be allowed to make public comment. The purpose of this outcomes review oversight is to look back at what these bills did and to tell the story of whether these policies are working as intended. We'll be examining these policies through the lens of before and after using data to illustrate how things are going. Oversight is a crucial aspect of the work we do here in the legislature, and I am pleased to look at these two important policies that have had a direct impact on the health and safety of California's foster youth. As we get started on part one to discuss AB 2247 by Sam Lerner Gibson, the Committee on Human Services is joined by panelists from the California Youth Connection, Children's Law Center, Department of Social Services, and County Welfare Directors Association. I want to thank our presenters today for making the time to share the important work they are doing to implement these landmark bills that were intended to support our youth. We will begin with panel one. Welcome to Assemblymember by Gibson and Mercedes Parker from CYC. So, somewhere, Gibson, you may open and go for the presentation. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to start off by thanking one, Speaker Robert Rivas, for one convening such oversight review hearing. And thank you very much for going through this process and one selecting my bill, my legacy bill of 2018, to be one of the ones chosen to be heard in today's oversight hearing. Excuse me. So before Assembly Bill 2247, California's foster care system often unintentionally added to the trauma of children had already experienced. Youth who entered the foster care system because of abuse, neglect, or family instability were frequently subjected to repeated placement disruption and deepened their sense of loss in security. At the time where foster parents were only expected to provide seven notice when requesting a child be removed from their home While some transition were thoughtful managed far too many children experience disrupt movement with little preparation or support. Research alongside lived experience. foster youth made clear that repeated removes neglected or negatively impacted children. California Youth Connection members, drawing from their own experience in foster care, helped identify the critical gaps and partnered in writing a new statute that centered the need of children in the state of California. The voices that shape this legislation came directly from those who had lived through the system here in this state of California. Some children's experience, watch this, 30 or more placements during their lifetime in foster care. Just imagine what that means. Placement, 30 or more. What does that mean? 30 high schools or 30 schools, 30 different beds, 30 different neighborhoods, and the list goes on and on. Every move increased the risk of losing personal belongings, falling behind in schools, being separated from siblings, and losing trusted connections with their communities. That's what that means. Even more troubling, there were very few requirements to preserve placements before deciding to move a child. In some cases, youths received little to no notice. They were leaving loved ones behind. Their belongings and the memories they represent were packed into a trash bag. A youth advocate named Katrina, a powerful testimony during a bill that was being considered that I wrote in 2018. Oh, she sat in this very room with me. She sat to my left side in this chair next to me when I brought that bill before this committee. She said, and I quote, the thing about packing in trash bags is this, that trash bag are too fragile to carry futures. Did you hear what I said? It's too fragile to carry futures. That testimony became the defining reminders that replacement changes are never simply an administrative decision that shapes a child's sense of dignity, belonging, and hope. Assembly Bill 2247 fundamentally changes California's laws by shifting the focus from simply managing placement changes to activating, preventing unnecessary disruption. The legislation requires social workers to develop and implement placement strategies developing partnerships with youth children and families teaming before changing a child placement documenting those efforts within a child case planning When a placement change was still necessary, the law established strong protections by requiring at least 14 days notice. The bill also prohibits a non-emergency placement change from occurring overnight between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. The bill recognized that children deserve dignity, preparation, and stability during one of the most difficult moments they may experience. Assembly Bill 2247 creates a collaboration process that brings social workers, caregivers, youths, and families together to problem solve before placement ends. It recognizes that stability is not simply an outcome. It is an essential part of healing. Perhaps most importantly, the legislation helps rebalance power before giving youth a greater voice in decisions that profoundly affects their lives. Eight years later, the culture that it helps transform a foster care system that recognizes that every child deserves stability and the opportunity to heal. These children are individuals whom safety, dignity, relationships, and the future deserves protection. Again, I want to thank our speaker for having the vision, because without a vision, the people perish. This is my legacy. This is my voice on behalf of the foster youth of the state of California. And thank you for allowing me to present this bill, Assembly Bill 2247, on behalf of the foster youth of the state of California. Thank you so much, Assemblymember. Now we'll move on to Mercedes Parker from the California Youth Connection for your presentation. Good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee, and thank you, Assemblymember Gibson, for your powerful words. My name is Mercedes Parker. I am a Community Advocacy Coordinator with California Youth Connection. CYC is a statewide youth-led organization of young people under the age of 25 with lived experience in the foster care system as well as intersecting systems. And for the last three, almost four decades, our members have driven systemic policy changes by ensuring that the people who actually live through these systems are the ones designing the solutions. We proudly sponsored AB 2247 in 2018 because placement changes are some of the most profoundly disruptive experiences a foster youth can face. Currently, there are over 36,000 foster children and youth currently in California's child welfare system, and every single one of them deserves to have a stable, safe, and loving and secure home. The reality is that frequent chaotic placement changes completely undermine that stability from the start. And uphill climb to adulthood with limited resources and no safety net. Nationally, youth experience an average of four to five placement changes. This track record shows that a young person's security in a home drops drastically after just two placements, plummeting from over 86% all the way down to 13.7%. Once a young person is moved twice, the system essentially enters a free fall of chronic disruption. And in fact, we found that of foster youth that experienced five or more moves, nine out of ten of them, will become involved in the juvenile justice system. Before AB 2247 was passed, there was a vacuum in California law governing how placement change should actually occur. As a result, youth faced abrupt, sudden moves that disrupted every single part of their lives while being completely locked out of the process. Decisions that dictated where they slept, where they went to school, who they lived with, were made about them, but entirely without them. This complete lack of a meaningful voice and choice created traumatic conditions, not safe ones. Youth were treated like property to be moved from one location to another, given little notice and little explanation. And it's not just about losing a roof over your head. It's the fundamental right to normalcy. California's statutory mandates explicitly require the state to protect a foster youth's right to a normal childhood, ensuring that they can participate in age-appropriate extracurricular activities, stay connected to their community, and their supports. When youth are ripped from placements without warning, that standard of normalcy is entirely destroyed. What is instead normalized is being pulled out of a classroom mid-semester. What's normalized is losing your spot on your school sports team, your after-school programs, your siblings, your friends, your mentors, often so much without so much of a goodbye. What's normalized is foster youth feeling temporary and disposable, creating survival anxiety that makes it incredibly difficult to focus on building a future. And what makes caring for these youth are young people are routinely displaced, and not necessarily for safety risks, but for their self-expression, their culture, their religion, their dietary choices, their gender identity, or their foster parents' outright racial biases. If a caregiver refuses to accept a young person's core identity, the system allows them to treat that youth as an inconvenience. Instead of doing the work to ensure placements continue to be successful, these placement changes were weaponized against youth as a punishment, youth being labeled too difficult to work with and shuttled to another home with even less of a chance of stability. In a typical family, teenage disagreements over rules are handled with conversation, dialogue. In this system, a lack of regulations allowed caregivers to just give up and demand an immediate extraction. AB 2247 was tasked specifically to create a youth-centered process to stop this. This was done in partnership with the Youth Law Center's Quality Parenting Initiative and has been several years of targeted advocacy. The law mandates that before an agency can uproot a youth, specific criteria must be met. agencies are legally required to provide a 14-day written notice to everyone on that youth's team, including their attorney. And before that youth is moved, mandatory placement preservation strategies must be implemented. These strategies are youth-centered and focused on front-loaded care at the time of placement, conflict resolution, mental health checks, direct support for resource families convening a child and family team meeting to actively mediate and preserve the home. Sometimes a placement change is necessary for safety, and AB 2247 does not prevent those vital emergency moves. Instead, it requires agencies to ask, what can we do to preserve this placement before disrupting another child's life, often for the umpteenth time? That shift from reacting to a to actively preventing an unnecessary move is why AB 2247 is so important. It also built crucial system accountability It created a formal process allowing youth to call the foster care ombuds office to officially add their own account of the placement change in their case file so violations could be independently investigated and used to improve practice across the state through training technical assistance and quality improvement so that agencies do not continue repeating the same mistakes AB 2247 was intended to take a step forward to providing real structural stability, allowing FOSS youth to stop operating in survival mode. Stability is about confidence and positivity. It ensures that they have consistent therapy, doctors, uninterrupted access to vital resources, preservation of those really key relationships that you can't replace, and a continuous circle of support. Ultimately, it sets our youth up to pursue their highest hopes and dreams, whether that's college, career, or stability. That's all I have to say. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. I'm going to invite Assemblyary Gibson to join us on the dais if you would like. And then we're going to move on to some questions. Since the spirit of this hearing is an oversight, I'm going to ask you some questions from the sponsor kind of perspective on the bill. And I'm going to invite my colleagues to ask questions as well. But first question I wanted to ask, you know, as a sponsoring organization eight years on, which parts of the law do you think are working as intended? And where do you think implementation has fallen short of what you envisioned? There's a lot that could be done to better support implementation. A few steps that we've seen in the right direction include the CANS assessment, the child and family needs and strengths assessment, which are being rolled out across the state, which is basically a strength and needs-based assessment of a young person so that that placement can continue to invest in the things that are working for that youth, whether that is supporting a relationship that they have a hobby, an activity, something academic, as well as identifying key needs. CFTs are often not implemented to a high degree of fidelity, which is something that we are seeing a lot of progress being made across the state, although there is more that is needed. In order for a CFT to really function the way that it's intended under the purpose of this law is to make sure that it is a youth-centered process, meaning that young people are included in this conversation, that the folks around them are not making decisions around their placement or other things that impact their life without including their voice in it. But other things that we are seeing that are working well is there's more transparency around placement decisions and also the requirement for agencies to actually document the preservation efforts that are made. there's more that can be done to support and making sure that those preservation efforts are aligning with best practices, especially as it pertains to the needs of young people, as well as access to technical assistance for counties. All right. Thank you. When TYC sponsored this bill Because youth identified placement Spilling the abruptness of moves As a harm which both you And the seller talked about From what youth are talking to you about today Has a day to day experience of placement change Improved Compared to back then Yes so now there a lot more protections In place to prevent a youth being moved unnecessarily I seen this I work in five different counties in California So Sacramento, Yolo County, Butte, Tahima, and Glen. I have seen youth specifically in Sacramento County that have experienced challenges within their placement. and their parent has initiated a 14-day notice, which is an entire week longer than the previous seven-day notice. And I have seen that actually lead to placement preservation efforts taking place. So that CFT meeting happening, those young people receiving needed supports, whether it is therapy, whether it is reevaluating their medication, or just determining if there's other things going on in the home, mediation being provided. So I've seen several placements. I've only been with the organization for about four years now, but in the four years that I've been here, I've seen several placements be preserved instead of, you know, a youth having to move to a different county. Unfortunately, in smaller counties and more rural counties, I have not seen the same level of success. I have seen placement changes continue to be weaponized against youth, youth basically being threatened with being removed for, you know, typical challenges that we're faced with teens, like, you know, cleaning up your bathroom in the morning and things like that, that escalate unnecessarily and just make it impossible for that youth to remain in the home. Also, those youth are not always educated on what their rights are around advocating for themselves or even being able to make that call to the Ombuds Office to make sure that their rights are not being violated in the process of placement preservation or placement changes. All right. Thank you. I'm going to ask one more question and see if my colleagues have any questions. But one of the key provisions of AB 2247 back then was also prohibiting the middle of the night placement, abrupt placement changes. Do youth report that middle of the night or polled from school moves have become less common in 2018 now? Are we seeing a lot less of that now? Yeah. Yeah. In my experience, we have not seen any overnight moving taking place. We've seen substantial reductions in that. Sorry, was there another part of your question? No, that's the crux of it. I'm going to see if Assemblyman Gibson or Pellerin have any questions. Assemblyman Gibson, go for it. First of all, thank you very much for your testimony, and thank you for sitting in that seat right there when I presented the bill in 2018.
And thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for convening and chairing this very important oversight hearing.
I'm interested around the social workers part because they play a major role from your lens. And for the four years that you have been in the position with the organization, can you talk about from your experience of what you've heard and in the spaces you've been in, have relationships gotten better or strengthening around the social workers responsibility? Can you talk about that from your lens and what you've heard and in the conversations in the rooms that you've been in since this bill has been implemented, 2247?
So we do see a lot of shifting towards those youth-centered practices. And again, including young people in those conversations, especially those CFTs, and also using CFTs child and family team meetings as a protective measure and something that is proactive So something that not just revisited during times of conflict or stress or transition but something that is planned for ahead of time and continuously revisited. And so social workers having that tool and also those documentations, the documentation of the preservation efforts is beneficial to social workers as well. I think this also has lended itself to just more success and just access to behavioral health services. When there's more trust in that youth-centered process, there's more communication around certain those needs, which makes it easier for that social worker to help fill in those gaps. One other follow-up question. With the children and family team
meetings that they're expected to meet, do you think that the youth feel comfortable in those meetings and sharing?
Yeah. Unfortunately, I can't say yes to that across the board. I think there's more to be done to structure CFTs in a way that actually matches the intent, which is, again, that best practice of being youth-centered, creating that safe space for a young person to share that those meetings are correctly facilitated. that they're facilitated by folks that are neutral so that that youth can actually be heard. I haven't been seeing a lot of that. I still hear from youth that, you know, don't feel comfortable speaking up in those meetings or they feel like they're being talked at and not talked with. So I think there's more that can be done in that area.
Okay. So you think, so what do you think the barrier is? They just don't feel comfortable because of what?
I think, to be honest, I think it's kind of an intimidation thing where, you know, you're the youngest person in the room. Everybody around you is either professional or somebody that has, you know, has a contractual obligation to you. I don't feel that youth always feel safe in those spaces. A lot of times our youth report feeling like their social workers or their CFTs are kind of taking the side of the foster parents and not necessarily the young person's experience. I think where there has been, I guess, growth in that area is the ability for a young person to have a supportive person in their CFT meeting, a supportive person of their choice, whether it is a peer, a sibling, a mentor in the community. I've been a part of a few CFT meetings myself, and that can go a long way into making sure that those young people feel comfortable. I think also young people are not always aware of their right to have that advocate in the room with them to help make sure that that space is safer for them to share. So I think all those things kind of contribute. And then, you know, in some situations where youth has been kind of like getting in trouble for certain things like cleaning the bathroom. This is a real example, by the way, of 14 day notices being initiated for a young person because bathroom chores, unfortunately. But when that has been kind of like a repeated point of contention in the home, it can kind of just be an uncomfortable topic for a young person to really talk about in that space. So, yeah, I think just more supports around that youth-centeredness. However, like that meeting can be shifted to accommodate the young people. It is challenging with so many members on the team. There's a lot of different schedules to juggle. so it is difficult sometimes to have a CFT meeting that meets all those needs but I think our counties can do more to make sure those spaces are youth-centered.
It's amazing. I mean, you said a 14-day notice has been issued on a child because of bathroom chores. During the time that I brought this bill forward, notice was given because a child wouldn't eat the vegetables or a child wouldn't take a bath. and these children supposed to, these parents these foster parents supposed to take them in who provide love and a nurturing home and take them in as if they were their own biological children and they wouldn't do that to their own, there was a lady committee members and chair who was facing I forgot what state, 20 felony charges because taking in a foster kid and their own children would take baths and the foster kids would take a shower or bath with a water hose outside. Their own children would eat cooked meals, but eat the scraps of McDonald's for foster kids or whatever her own biological kids wouldn't eat and was facing 20 child endangerment felonty charges. Again, another state, not California, But again, there's an obligation with foster parents taking in children, treating them as if they're their own biological children. And I'm saddened to hear that at 14 days notice just because of chores.
Yeah, it still happens. In 2026.
And that's why we create and that's why we fight so hard for foster children in the state of California. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you to California Youth Connect for being here. We're going to transition to our second part of this panel, in which to go further about the implementation progress. So I'm going to invite our representatives from the California Department of Social Services, County Welfare Director's Association, and the Children's Law Center. Each panelist will have five to seven minutes. And following this panel, I will open it up for public comments for members of the public to make public comments. And also before that, we'll have member questions as well. So if the Department of Social Services wants to start first.
Oh, okay. Hello. Good afternoon, Chair and members. This is quite a good legacy, Bill. Thank you very much for having me here. My name is Sarah Rogers. I'm with the Department of Social Services and the System of Care Branch. I'm here to give an update on our implementation efforts. I think it's really important to start with your comments that the centrality of fidelity to the child and family team process is really the heart and soul of how this bill impacts the experience of children in care. At the same time, we had implemented this guidance first through the publishing of ACL 1926. And this was about six months into the new year. We established the guidance that just informed the policing agencies and the providers of these new requirements. So that really just reflects our published guidance, and it essentially informs everyone about the changes. We also changed the interim licensing standards for the STRTP, the Short-Term residential therapeutic programs to implement the requirements. And again that simply reflects the administrative implementation as it pertains to informing everyone about the requirements And the last piece of the initial implementation related to the Office of Foster Care Ombudsperson who also established the procedures to receive complaints and respond to those complaints as they incurred. So in terms of the data, I will share that the Ombudsperson has received 280, 208 total complaints related to this law so far. And some of those cases were resolved without investigation. And of those cases that were investigated, there were 36 substantiated items. And that really, when someone is able to identify the process to complain, this does exist for them to have those issues remediated. It still does not reflect a comprehensive framework for implementation or tracking that ensures that it's the consistent experience of foster youth in the state. So what I would add is that in passage of the tiered rates proposal and structure and the centrality of the child and family team and the IP CANS, which is that assessment framework, that's really where you see an initial massive investment in integrating these requirements into all of the efforts for implementing child and family teaming fidelity work as well as the IP CANDS. And that's where you really see going forward the vision and the impact of what the child and family team practices will have in terms of a placement preservation strategy. So with that, I will mention that the, oh, and actually I do have some data just in terms of the the CANS and CFT data. So with TRS implementation, we established the CCR dashboard, and that provided a lot of ongoing systematic data for how often those child and family teams are occurring and their timeliness. And this bill also established a change in terms of what is a timely child and family team. And so that's very significant in terms of how we're tracking the data on the CCR dashboard. That is a public-facing resource that allows anyone to go and observe when those child and family teams are happening and ensuring essentially that when there's a placement change, we are able to observe whether that child and family team occurred prior to the placement change. So what I do want to say is we're not able to see whether the change was initiated by the provider or due to an actual disrupted placement. We are tracking this in terms of every child prior to a placement change should be receiving a child and family team. In terms of the data that we have in the dashboard right now, we have 48% of children in the dashboard still have not had a child and family team prior to placement. That does not necessarily include, I mean, it does actually include the possibility that some of those youth are children who were subject to the exception. And so it wouldn't be accurate to say that those were specifically those youth that should have had a CFT. But I think it's important to note that currently the data still reflects that 48% did not have a CFT prior to the placement change. Of those that did have a child and family team prior to the placement change about 10 of the youth had that CFT 16 days or less before the change and approximately 50 had a child and family team around 48 days So what that is telling us is that the other point I will mention is that this number is increasing in terms of the proportion of youth who have a timely child and family team prior to a placement change. So we are absolutely observing an increase and an improvement in the practice of ensuring there's a child and family team occurring in align with this law. So in terms of ongoing efforts to ensure fidelity and ensure that this bill is fully realized, there's a very robust effort to increase the fidelity of child and family teaming practice across the board in large investments in the implementation of the IPCANs as a part of the Child and Family Team. And by embedding all of those requirements that exist from this bill into every aspect of that fidelity framework, that's where you're really going to see that much stronger fidelity for every single child, because that is our goal. We're looking at this not only from the point of view of an individual child's data point, but actually systemically how how is the system operationalizing using the child and family team to see the needs of a child and actually responding in a way that prevents an unplanned discharge, or if the child does have to transition, has a robust and effective plan that will respond to their needs. So all of that body of work is reflected in the recent fidelity framework that is being enacted pursuant to the tiered rate structure. And I could get into a lot of detail about exactly where and how, but what I will, as an illumination of how this is being implemented now, every county is currently completing what's called the CPIP, the County Practice Improvement Plan relating to Child and Family Teaming. Almost all counties have now submitted those plans. And what that plan requires is for them, the counties with all of their system of care partners to use a very robust framework of evaluating both timeliness, but also the quality of the fidelity to that family-centered, child-centered, youth-centered framework in the child and family team. So there's a robust process where they will rate themselves on a number of items related to all of these practice elements. and then develop a program improvement plan to improve all of that practice. So I think the takeaway here is that we are not implementing this law simply in a way that is hoping that someone complains. That is not the way that this is getting implemented. This is truly getting implemented in a way that is designed to be embedded in every step of design and implementation, the development of local policies and practices with respect to implementation of CFTs, to the provision of surveys to all the participants of the child and family teams, so that the people who are part of those meetings are really engaging in kind of that quality assurance framework and leading to more systemic and true change that reflects the vision of what a child and family team, really is supposed to be And that IP cans is the data element that truly also represents the needs How are we seeing the needs And then how are we responding to those needs And then the last point I'll make is that as we move again through implementation of the tiered rate structure and implementation of our new care system, the components of a CFT meeting that reflect the plan, the response, that's also getting embedded into the new system in a way that allows us to track the data, observe outcomes, and really ensure that there is a thoughtful response to the identified needs of every child. And so the capacity to really answer the questions about the quality is really transformed once that happens. So I think that this bill was really pivotal in advancing the role that a child and family team has in how we see and respond to those needs and that I think there's a lot to be proud of in how this comprehensive implementation framework has unfolded. So with that, I will conclude my remarks. All right, thank you. Next,
we'll hear from the County Welfare Director's Association. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and
members. My name is Amanda Kirchner and I am the director of legislative advocacy for the County Welfare Directors Association. For 100 years, CWDA has represented county human services agencies, the programs we administer, and the clients that we serve, including our foster youth. I want to thank the chair for inviting us today to discuss this important bill and how counties have implemented those changes over the last several years. Placement changes for youth are confusing and upsetting. A child who has been brought into the foster care system because they have already been harmed in some way, has that trauma exacerbated with every placement change. And we know that the longer a child is in care, the more likely they are to have multiple placements. Research consistently shows that multiple placement changes are associated with worse educational outcomes, increased rates of mental health and behavioral health issues, increased chances of youth running away, and increased chances for homelessness upon exit from care. To address these issues, AB 2247 made two important changes. First, social workers must have placement prevention plans to try and stabilize the placement if possible. Second, a social worker or probation officer must provide a 14-day notice instead of seven days unless there is an emergency situation. Under AB 2247, before a placement change can happen, a social worker must consult with the child's child and family team to develop and implement the placement preservation strategy to help support the child's existing placement. Most counties are holding a CFT meeting within five days of the social worker being informed by the caregiver of the need for a placement change. During the CFT, counties are identified and addressed. If needed, a review of the child's child and adolescent needs and strengths assessment, CANS, can be utilized to guide those discussions for services or resources needed. Particularly for Native American children, tribal resources and supports can be identified and incorporated into the placement preservation strategy. The best placement preservation strategies are trauma-informed and solutions-oriented. They include services and resources to meet the youth and the caregiver's needs. They should be age-appropriate with detailed steps and action plans. The work done during a placement preservation CFT is critical to identify as many issues as possible with the placement and try to build solutions around the child and their caregiver. Typically, a counties schedule a follow-up CFT within 30 days to ensure the placement preservation strategy is being implemented and to identify if any resources are still needed. If after the CFT occurs and the caregiver still requests a change, our social workers will make every effort to find a family that can best meet the child's needs. If possible, we will find placements with siblings or find ways to continue those critical relationships. The provisions in AB 2247 that restrict movement between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. have not been an issue for our counties generally because we avoid those times as best practices. Our social workers will regularly check in with the youth during the placement change to help them cope with the transition. Since 2019, the total number of placement changes has dropped from 15,714 annually to 9,961, and that's a statewide number. Sure. In 2019, it was 15,714 statewide. And then the most recent data from 25 drops it to 9,961 statewide. And that's available on the Child Welfare Indicators Project out of that data. This is good progress. And many of our counties have dropped their number of placements per 1,000 days in care to less than two on average. But we know that these changes also did not happen in a vacuum. Other policy and resource changes have built upon the work of 2247. The Family Urgent Response System, FIRST, was created to help foster youth and their caregivers have a crisis line to help mediate conflicts big and small. Since 2021, the FIRST hotline has been available statewide as a critical tool to help officer youth, including deploying mobile crisis units to the home when needed. This is a resource that can be used any time prior to placement changes. It's 24-7, and importantly, it helps address things before. It helps develop between a youth and a caregiver that could lead to a full placement disruption. We believe FIRST has been a critical tool in preventing conflict that often leads to placement disruptions and has contributed to placement stability. Additionally, CDSS and counties have also prioritized and funded increased kinship placements for our foster youth. Statewide, about one-third of our foster children are in kinship placements with relatives or other non-related extended family members. Counties have worked very diligently over the last several years to increase placement with relatives, including partnering with the Center for Excellence in Family Finding on best practices, participating in CDSS kinship navigator sprints, and utilizing statewide funding to build out our family finding efforts. A 2021 study found that kinship placements, even when they weren't the first placement for the child, contributed to fewer placement disruptions over the length of time that the child was in care. When children are placed with kin, they feel security, they're able to maintain important relationships, and they're able to stay in their communities, which help stabilize and strengthen their placements. This is just some of the work that our counties and our state partners have done to better support our children and youth in foster care, and it does seem to be working. In 2021, the Office of the Foster Care Ombudsman reported 74 complaints specific to AB 2247. In 2024, that number fell to 13 complaints. We believe AB 2247 combined with other policy changes and investments, including funding for front prevention work has contributed to improved outcomes We appreciate the work of Assemblymember Gibson and all he has done to improve California foster care system and protect the children of California. Thank you.
All right, thank you. And last but not least, let's go to the Children's Law Center.
Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Anne Quirk. I'm a policy attorney with Children's Law Center of California. We are the largest children's legal service organization in the nation. We represent tens of thousands of children and youth involved in the dependency system across Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Placer counties. We appreciate the opportunity to speak about the implementation of 2247. We see the damage done by these moves every day. For the child, it's another loss, another failure. I think Mercedes did an incredible job of explaining what the emotional damage is around that. We talk about placement disruption, and that sounds like, oh, that's annoying. But the reality is these moves cause damage to kids. And we're especially excited to support AB 2247 back in the day because this was the sponsor being California Youth Connection, like the young people who had actually experienced these losses and trying to prevent the damage done to the children, current and future children in the system. So thrilled about the law. Back to today. Anyways, the goal of 2247 was straightforward. Before moving a child between out-of-home placements and non-emergency situations, counties should make meaningful efforts to preserve the placement whenever it is safe and appropriate to do so. It created a process that emphasized conflict resolution and advance notice so that the placement changes would become the exception and not the norm. So to better understand how it was functioning, we surveyed our client-facing staff across all the offices in all our three counties. The results show the law has made a positive difference, but implementation remains inconsistent and problematic, resulting in significant differences in how children experience the protections that the law intended. First, compliance with the law, one of the law's most important procedural safeguards. I'm saying that as a lawyer, of course, the 14-day written notice is highly inconsistent. Among attorneys that responded, only a very small percentage reported receiving proper notice of impending placement changes on a regular basis. Most reported receiving notice only sometimes or rarely. And without timely notice, our attorneys lose valuable opportunities to advocate for services, to identify alternatives, including possible placements with kin. and to ensure that the child's voice is heard. I'm also concerned if we're not getting notice that the other parties that are supposed to be getting notice aren't getting it either. And one of that is children who are 10 or older are supposed to also receive notice. And if they're not getting that, that means they continue to have those situations where they don't know they're being moved until the social worker shows up to move them. And you see the same thing that Mercedes talked about, where you don't get a chance to say goodbye. Or you don't really get a chance to pack your stuff up. Somebody else does it. An adult has done it. And in addition to that invasion of privacy, your things get left, right? Like your favorite shirt that was in the laundry Or your private journal that was in the hidden spot so no one would tell get to find out your secrets and those things get left when kids don get noticed that they're having to move. Okay I'll talk faster. Secondly our staff overwhelmingly reported that the placement preservation strategies are not being implemented consistently. Two-thirds of the respondents said these interventions occur only when attorneys, CASAs, or caregivers actively push for them, or it's dependent upon the individual social worker's practice. So some social workers are extremely good and do it every time, and others rarely, if ever. And several mentioned that they're seeing preservation meetings occurring for STRTP placements, but not for foster homes. I'll say that our survey, the comments in the surveys told an even more compelling story. Multiple attorneys observed that preservation CFT meetings have become far less common over the past few years. Others described situations where meetings occurred, but action plans were never implemented or followed. Several reported learning about placement changes only after the child had already moved. And it appears with the focus off the new change in law, it has not truly become a part of everyone's regular practice. This also appears to be reflected in the data for our three counties, with placement changes declining after the passage of AB 2247, only to show an increase in the last two years. In the survey's comments, CLC staff recognized the value of the law when it's implemented as intended. Several discussed successful preservations that stabilized placements and avoided unnecessary moves for children. Importantly, the survey found very few unintended negative consequences associated with the legislation itself. However, they did identify two significant issues that likely require a statutory remedy. The first has to do with the exception built into the statute to allow youth to be moved without a placement preservation strategy if there is an immediate safety risk. Some attorneys described situations in which their clients wanted to leave placements immediately because they felt unsafe. But they were required to remain in the home because their social worker determined there was not an immediate risk. Ultimately, the children were moved, but they were forced to wait that two-week period. And I would just say that waiting two weeks can sound reasonable if you're not the one affected. So I would just encourage you to think of a time you felt unsafe, perhaps spending the night in a questionable hotel. And just remember how badly you slept, your constant anxiety and hypervigilance, your inability to ever get comfortable. And then expand that by two weeks. And then imagine that you're 10. Clarifying that youth requested moves under appropriate circumstances may proceed with unnecessary delay, while still ensuring careful review and documentation would better honor youth's voice and agency. The second issue involves when a child is to be moved into the home of a relative or non-relative extended family member. A placement that typically promotes family connections and child well-being, and is also the preference in law. There is some ambiguity in the current statute and some people have interpreted the statute to still require completion of the placement preservation process before that move can occur That was certainly we assume that is not the intent of AB 2247 and it does not make sense for these family-centered placements to be delayed. We suggest that the law be amended to clearly recognize that moving a child into the home of a safe relative or other kin should not require procedural hurdles that may prolong placement instability. Ultimately, the survey reflects what we are seeing in the field. There's been a reduction in placement disruptions, but not the complete paradigm shift that we would hope for. The survey also demonstrates that implementation, not legislative intent, is now the primary challenge. AB 2247 represented an important shift towards trauma-informed child welfare practice. The survey tells us the framework remains sound, but that our work is now ensuring that every child not just some children, receive the protections that the law intended.
Thank you. This is kind of the crux of our conversation about implementation and how we finally get legislation and legislative intent into real life. Assembly Gibson, I know you had some questions. Did you want to dig in? Thank you very much to all three of you guys for your
testimony. Certainly it has raised eyebrows from me. And just have a few questions. And thanks for the stats that has been given so far. I won't go over some. But for Ms. Quirk, eyebrows went up when you talked about some inconsistencies and some areas of ambiguity in the language that need some clarifying. And you talked about, can you elaborate a little bit more? Because you talked about placement and you talked about who should have the actual placement of the children.
Sure. Well, there are the two different areas that we found. And one, there is an exception where you can move without the two-week notice and the whole placement preservation. with if everyone in the CFT agrees, it's a unanimous decision. But since they're often, especially with our younger children, if we're talking about moving like a baby or a toddler who really is not able to talk about it to a relative or with kin, both the caregiver, the relative, everyone is a part of that CFT. And if the foster parent doesn't want that baby moved with a relative, you can't do it, that exception would not apply then because it's not a unanimous decision. So you still have that. There's ambiguity as to whether you have to try to preserve that placement in the foster home as opposed to moving that child with a relative if you have to go through the court process to do it. It just really delays the move to get with family. So in those kinds of cases, how was that resolved? And then again, like, so it depends on the situation or how people choose to do it. Sometimes it means that it's delayed that additional time before you can actually make the move. Other times it's to go. Or you'd have to go into court to do it. Or again, it can delay the process.
Okay. Which makes it, which is hard for everyone, right? So you also made mention about the CFT meetings action plans not being given. Just not being enforced, right? Like you have the CFT meeting, you make all the decisions. what's going to happen. And then no one actually follows through with the action plan. How often do you think that that's being done?
I would, I'm like, I'm a lawyer, so I better not just guess. It'd be hard to say, but it's certainly not uncommon to hear about that.
Okay. And they also make mention about children's are not being given at least the 14 day notice. Yeah. And can you elaborate in terms of you mentioned that you talked about a journal sometime. Kids are not given the absolute time to be notified. They may have a journal somewhere that's hidden and they're actually being taken away and that journal is still there. So is that a coincidence? Is that not very often or that is often that those incidents are taking place? Again, it depends on – and that's one of the reasons you created this law was to try to stop that.
But it's still going on where we have foster parents – or not necessarily foster parents, but the placement is saying we can't – we need this child to be moved, but we're not going to tell them. We need you to tell – the social worker to tell them or something. And so then the social worker shows up to take them and they haven't been getting any chance to prepare for it. So and in addition with that is sometimes their things are packed while they're not there. And so they don't have a chance to go back and get everything. And again, like when somebody else is if someone were to pack up your stuff, they wouldn't get everything that is necessarily yours or that you consider really important. And so if you're not the one doing the packing, things get left behind.
Is there a response from?
Sure. I think everything that we strive to do is our best practices, but best practices run into resources and limitations on time and facilities. I think to the situation that Anne's specifically talking about, for kids 10 and under, they don't get a notice as part of the CFT planning. And so it can come as a surprise to them that they're being moved until the social worker shows up. And then for the children 10 and older, I think what she's talking about are situations where the resource family or the placement doesn't want to be the one to break the news that they need to be moved. And so I think that's an area that we can work on there. Certainly a child that's 10 deserves to get the notice, whether that notice is meaningful to them and they understand it and how it's being delivered, I think is something that we need to work on to make sure that it's across the board. I think a lot of times when we talk about these placement disruptions, we are talking about some of the older youth when we have in mind the moving. but oftentimes we have a lot of movement in our younger youth when they immediately get placed, then they need to move to a relative. Sometimes that doesn't work out, so we move to them to another relative. So in these situations, I think it's really critical to identify these gaps and see how we can better our practices. All of this is an iteration in our implementation, constantly working with the department and how we can fill things in. So for instance, on the CFT and the follow we heard from the department that part of that is going to be integrated into the CARES project So that something that isn there yet but we working towards And so when we come back in a couple of years with CARES, we can reevaluate how are those plans that were talked about in the CFT now documented in the CARES system? How do we see the follow through? We have gaps in our IT systems right now to make sure we have that. sometimes the gaps also are simply just it takes time to get some of these resources together. If the requirements are mental health related, other sort of behavioral or appointments, we have long waiting lists for those resources, especially for things like our wraparound services. So it might not necessarily be that they aren't done. They're just not done yet because of waiting lists that are out of our control for behavioral health or other needs. If I could add, I do want to note that the subsection K in the bill does allow for this section to not apply if it's a planned placement change informed by the child and family team that is described in the dependent child's case plan. So if there's a need for further clarification, I think we could look at that as a fidelity issue and potential opportunity for further clarification. I also would mention that beginning this year, there's the implementation of the CFT action plan that has a prescribed template that requires that the placing agencies will document the occurrence and summary of every CFT meeting, which is a very specific template that summarizes the meeting and the action plan.
And so that really transforms the ability to track and have consistent adoption of a standard of what the CFT is looking at, what it's recommending. And you're really able to have that adherence. And then, and not just from a compliance standpoint, but really for the counties to be able to see the data themselves. And so then they can, because they also have to partner with their behavioral health partners in order to implement a child and family team appropriately. So there also, this is a system of care implementation kind of effort that requires this data and this framework to all come together in order for everybody to be on the same page.
Let me ask you one question. Have the CFT occurred outside the presence of the youth?
Yes.
Can you elaborate why?
I mean.
Or anyone?
Well, I mean, we have defined fidelity and a proper child and family team to be one in which the child is present, unless there is, you know, a allowable reason, like such as.
Has it been documented in a case file?
It would be documented in the case file.
And the reason why?
Part of the CFT action plan. And so there is documentation of who's present in the child and family team. So when we are measuring and monitoring a high fidelity child and family team, a CFT that is meeting standards, it would also consider whether the child was present. And that would not be a correct CFT if the child is not present unless it's for an allowable reason. So we are monitoring and that is part of our fidelity framework. So there a 30 guidance on literally what constitutes fidelity that the counties are currently deeply engaged in where they looking at the data around are the children present So I not disputing that it occurs that a child isn present But what I am saying is that we know and that the counties are able to observe and track those CFTs that don't have the child present. And that becomes a fidelity kind of element that they would then remedy in their practice improvement plan for a child and family team fidelity.
Is that?
Also, I mean, there can be for a variety of reasons, including the child doesn't want to be there because as you heard Mercedes talk about, a lot of kids don't feel that the meetings are ones in which they're being heard, but rather where there's a whole lot of people talking about them or that they're, I mean, to be clear, most of us would not, depending on how it's run, would feel uncomfortable if a whole lot of people were talking about us and we only knew half of them and some of them we didn't like. I feel that way in the set of meetings too.
Yeah.
So sometimes they don't. It really depends on how well the CFTs are facilitated and whether children and family really feel like they are being hurt and that it's worthwhile for them to come and it's not just like two hours of people talking at them.
Sure. Great. Well, that's all I have. Thank you. I'm just going to zoom out and ask a couple questions on the data front. All right. So since this is one of the cases where we have eight years' worth of data, in 2018 the vast majority of these youth had instability, instability in their placements. So I wanted to ask, has the statewide data, it's a CDSS, right? Has the statewide data shown placement stability has improved since 2018? which is mostly has a share of youth experiencing two or more placements moved at all. And then also the data I wanted to ask for the county and CDSS together is with the data that we have available, is it showing what we hear anecdotally? There's discrepancies in enforcement and outcomes based on identity, like ethnicity, et cetera, and also discrepancies and differences in outcomes based on geography as well. So first question is, has placement still been improved since 2018, eight years ago, and then more about interrogating with our lots of data is the discrepancy in outcomes. I think Ms. Gork already testified that you observed data that showed that it had declined in some instances.
I have prepared the data regarding whether the law was implemented, so I would have to get back to the committee on specifically the overall measures on placement stability, specifically as it pertains to also those characteristics. But we do track that measure both in our CFSR measures as well as on the CCR dashboard. And so I will have to come back with that specific data point. And so since this law is looking more at whether child and family teaming happened to not only prevent the change, but also ensure that when it happens that there's better planning. That's a lot of what I have prepared for you today.
I want to ask the county if you have any data about any discrepancies or outcomes.
Yeah, so I think what we've seen is that as we've implemented, we have seen measurable progress. I think you can see that in some of the data that you can see. Ventura County had a substantial reduction. Siskiyou County had a substantial reduction. There were a number of counties that had seen drops from being over three or four placement changes per thousand days in cares to three and under And in Ventura case I think they were at like 1 or 1 So less than two placement changes per thousand days in care. So I do think some of our counties have been able to show significant progress. Statewide and with some of our larger counties that do have more children in care, the averages sort of stay the same. And I think part of that is just simply because of the acuity of kids who are now staying in care. As we've seen the drop in foster care placements in out-of-home care in the last decade, the number of children entering care has dropped significantly, but the ones that are staying in care tend to have higher needs. And those with higher needs do tend to need more placement changes or have more placement changes because we might need to put them into a more specialized resource family, ISFC, they might need a time to be stabilized in an STRTP before being stepped back down into a family-based home setting. So for those situations, I do think we have not as much data to show progress, but part of those counties is that simply some of the work is just harder. And so I'm really looking forward to the time when we can more closely track some of that through our CARES project and systems and see how our outcomes for our CFTs are based. Also, some of it is, again, a resource issue. Placement preservation strategies are resource intensive. They are time intensive. And so where we have the ability to have more face time, where we're able to have the ability to have really relational building between our social worker and the foster youth and their entire CFT team, we see better outcomes. And so to the extent that we can make sure that we have good social worker ratios for our children who are in the system, I think we will see better outcomes.
Okay. Thank you. I think we had a good, robust discussion today. I just want to be mindful of time, respectful that we have a second part of the panel. I do appreciate, we have a second oversight panel to do. I do really hope that we can follow up on some of the data points and making sure how we can have further implementation. Again, this is one of the kind of core of the oversight hearings, make sure we can revisit if something is working or not. And this is one of those cases where we have nearly a decade of work in progress. But if it's not working out, we need to revisit that. And so I do appreciate your discussion with us today. Thank you. I'll excuse this panel, and I'm going to open up for public comment for AB 2247. Please, if you're here for public comment for the next bill, we're going to have public comment for that. But if you have public comment for the overview of AB 2247, please come up to the microphone now.
Hi there. Thank you, Chair and staff, for your focus on AB 2247. I'm Vanessa Spagnoli. I'm with Casey Family Programs, and I was formerly with California Youth Connection in 2018. I just wanted to quickly underscore some of the powerful remarks that Assemblymember Gibson provided today, specifically the focus that this code section did not exist in California law. This code section was written by young people for young people at a time when nobody was talking about placement changes and instead blamed individual young people for their changes instead of analyzing what systemic factors played into the landscape. This committee is best served when we all listen to lived experts such as Mercedes and the great folks at CYC. And I just want to say thank you to Assemblymember Gibson for being a champion back then and continuing to be a champion now. Thank you.
All right. Thank you. Any other public comments? If not, I just want to thank Assembly or Gibson. Oh, you want to make a brief statement? Before we move on? Just a brief statement.
It's because of that bill is the reason how I met my staffer who works for me, Christopher Hernandez, who's a staff person with me in the Capitol. So thank you very much.
All right. Thank you so much for your work in this great legacy bill, and thank you for the decade-plus of service you've given to the State Assembly. And thank you. And this is a good conversation. Next, we're going to move on to our second part of the oversight hearing, a review of Assemblyman Pellerin's AB 2496. So I'm going to invite Assemblyman Pellerin to make her opening remarks at the desk, and then we move on to the panel, too. Thank you. Whenever you're ready.
Good afternoon. So I want to appreciate, thank you for convening this oversight hearing, and thank you to the committee staff for all the work that they've done, and certainly our speaker, Rebus, for making all this possible. In 2024, I authored AB 2496 to mitigate the harms caused by the insurance crisis facing our foster family agencies. There are around 200 foster family agencies or FFAs serving over 6,500 youth in California. This is about one in five foster youth statewide. Many of these youth have complex behavioral and mental health needs, and stable, well-supported placements are crucial to their well-being. Counties rely on FFAs to support the needs of foster children, as FFAs can provide more support than the county may be able to do on its own. For instance, FFAs provide 24-7 on-call assistance and help connect foster parents to social workers in moments of crisis, which many times helps the family stabilize so they can continue to offer foster children a safe home. However, in August of 2024, the Nonprofit Insurance Alliance of California, which is located in my district, it's called NIAC, which at the time covered 90% of FFAs, announced it would not be renewing the insurance policies of FFAs in California due to an inability to access reinsurance should it issue renewals. So this created immediate instability in the system given that insurance is required to serve these children. A broad range of child and youth serving organizations in California are to this day experiencing significant strain due to rising liability insurance costs and reduced market availability. So when we passed 2496 in 2024, the intent was to stabilize the insurance market in such a way that the almost 9,000 foster children in the care of FFAs at the time could stay in their safe home placements. To this end, the law enacted by this bill does three main things. First, it establishes indemnification protections. specifically it prohibits counties from requiring FFAs to indemnify them for claims arising from the county's own negligence or misconduct. The goal of this is to reduce liability exposure and help make FFAs more insurable and lower the cost of insurance Second the law streamlines the process for transferring foster homes between FFAs helping ensure children and families maintain services and placement stability when agencies close or leave the market. Finally, the bill directs the California Department of Social Services to provide recommendations to the legislature on potential solutions to address the insurance crisis. Unfortunately, a viable long-term solution to this crisis has not been shared. I am hopeful that we will be able to learn from today's hearing to chart a path forward. So this year, I introduced AB 2333, which extends the indemnification provisions of AB 2496 to January 1st, 2028, in order to ensure that sunsetting these protections didn't further disrupt an already incredibly unstable market. So since October of 2024, CDSS has reported there have been 28 FFA site closures. Thanks to the $31.5 million allocated through the budget to stabilize these agencies, we haven't seen any FFA closures in the last few months. While the insurance commissioner called on admitted insurers to step in, no state admitted insurer has reentered the market, leaving providers with limited and significantly more expensive options. So based on a recent survey conducted by the Department of Social Services and the California Alliance, 30 percent of agencies have laid off staff due to higher insurance costs and 62 percent of FFAs reported that they will not be able to sustain their higher insurance costs by the next renewal date. Twenty eight percent of those agencies reported that their FFA will be at risk of closing entirely. So we know FFA is playing an important role in our child welfare system, and it is absolutely incumbent upon us to find a solution to this crisis. Because the reality is if we cannot find a solution to this crisis, we will see 9,000 of our most vulnerable foster children revert back to county custody and care through whatever they can provide, which is not good for our kids.
Not good at all. Does that conclude your opening remarks?
That does.
All right. I'll invite you to come back on the dais, and we're going to invite the second panel to come up. We're going to be joined by panelists from the Department of Social Services, the County of Riverside, and McKinley Children's Center. But before we get started with the next panel as we set up, I did forget to say that I want to acknowledge that this bill, AB 2496, touched multiple jurisdictions. And, of course, I understand that these issues are still part of an ongoing conversation, as Assemblyman Pellerin talked about. This hearing is, of course, intended to focus on foster youth and the impacts of this issue on the youth. Foster youth's voices and experiences often get lost in the bureaucratic shuffle, and this committee won't let that happen. Today's purpose is to focus on the youth to ensure that no youth is negatively impacted by decisions made by the adults who should be considering their needs first. So I want to welcome, of course, Assemblymember Pellerin back up here to join us for questions. But we're really going to talk about an issue that is much more alive and doesn't have as long standing as eight years, but we're going to talk about it today. So with us today, we have our panels today. I want to remind folks that we have about allotted five to seven minutes each, and then we're going to engage in questions. So we're gonna have, and I do encourage folks to make their points in their, succinct in their points so that we can have time for dialogue But whoever wants to go first they may get started Good afternoon I Claire Ramsey I one of the chief deputy directors at the Department of Social
Services, and I'm pleased to be here today to speak about the implementation efforts by the Department of AB 2496. As Assemblymember Pellerin teed up in her opening comments, This was really a crisis, and this bill really sought to enact some tangible, important changes that would take effect immediately in order to help stabilize this crisis in the short term. And I also want to acknowledge that we continue to hear from our partners that insurance costs are increasing and that we do have additional work to do for longer-term solutions. So, as was mentioned, back in August of 2024, the Department learned that the Nonprofit Insurance Association of California, NIAC, would no longer insure FFAs beginning as soon as September 30, 2024. In response to these unprecedented challenges, the legislature enacted AB 2496 to help preserve placement stability for children and families while establishing a streamlined process for transitions when an FFA is no longer able to operate. Specifically, as mentioned, AB 2496 required CDSS to temporarily waive certain statutory provisions governing the transfer of resource family approvals while maintaining all background check requirements. To implement these provisions through all county letters or similar directives to support timely implementation. To report to the legislature on implementation efforts regarding resource family transfer activity and the effect of closures. and to work in coordination with other relevant entities to examine options for making liability insurance more available to FFAs in the long term. In response to this bill and the underlying changes that were happening around the availability of insurance for FFAs, CDSS began working immediately with its partners. And I'll speak a little more in a second about our larger efforts with partners to have stakeholder discussions. But I want to start by jumping into the work CDSS did to implement the portability, expedited portability process. The Department of Social Services, as I think you all know, oversees both our Community Care Licensing Division and our Children and Family Services Division, which oversees child welfare. As such, community care licensing plays an important role in this situation because it needed to basically interact with all our FFAs to understand more what the situation was on the ground and to ensure that FFAs, if they were at risk of closure, were working with the department so that the portability process could begin. As such, Community Care Licensing Division, under its children's residential programs, contacted 336 licensed FFAs statewide, and that includes both main offices and sub-offices, which is why the number was higher than the 200 you had mentioned, starting in September of 2024 to gather information about who was insuring the FFAs at that time, when their non-renewal date was, and to understand if they had already started to experience impacts from potential non-renewal. As the department gathered that information, we agreed to continue to track that going forward because we knew when people's non-renewal date was. And as non-renewal dates started to roll through, we continued to contact to understand when closures would happen. In response to the directive to complete the expedited portability process through an all letter In October of 2024 the department issued all letter 2477 which provided guidance on the expedited portability process And as is mentioned in the documentation accompanying this hearing, this portability process already existed, but there were a number of requirements, some of which took additional time and effort and sometimes slowed down the process. So this waiver allowed for us to maintain the health and safety of the children whose families would be ported from either one FFA to another or from one FFA back to the county while reducing some of the administrative burden of the process. we were able to get October is very quick for us to get an all county letter out and that's because we really worked with our partners and our team worked very hard to implement the rule immediately and to basically be ready in case imminent closures started to happen so after the ACL was issued counties did begin using this process and we have seen good results from it. We understand the process, and I know probably my colleague here will speak more to that, but we do see that it's been working well, and people have been able to transition much more quickly. I wanted to present some of the data. So we have had, as of July 1st of 2026, you know, back to September of 2024, 28 FFAs have closed specifically because of a loss of insurance. These FFAs were located across 13 counties. And I do just want to flag that the counties that is where the site of the FFA was, not necessarily which counties it served. So sometimes you may have heard an FFA closed. It might not have been in a particular county, but it impacted additional counties. Within those 28 closures, those accounted for 430 resource homes that were impacted, 246 of which had active placements at the time. And there were 400 placements within those homes that were impacted. But what we are very proud, and again, this was in partnership with many partners, including the FFAs and counties, is that no placement of a child was actually disrupted during this portability process. So while we did have closures and we did have county FFAs needing to use the portability process, we didn't have any placements disrupted. I want to move on now just quickly to acknowledging as insurance challenges continue, we have not solved the longer-term problem because that really is an issue that is going to take partnership on the Department of Insurance side and on an insurance solution and is less within the domain of Department of Social Services to be effectuating changes. But we have continued to work, and we have met with our stakeholders a number of times. We are in close communication with Department of Insurance, County Welfare Directors Association, County Welfare and Probation Departments, the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, and individual FFA members. We've had a number of different meetings over the last, at the end of 2024, beginning of and middle of 2025, to continue to discuss these issues. And we know the Department of Assurance is actively involved in looking at the liability issues and what's creating these pressures. We do know it's a national issue at this point and not unique to California. Finally, I'll just mention in terms of reporting to the legislature, We did have a briefing for legislative staff on May 7th of 2025 and were able to provide the data we had then and the efforts we had taken up to that point. We were also asked at two subcommittee hearings as part of the budget to report out on what was happening, and we did that on March 12th of 2025 in Assembly Sub 2 and on April 3rd, 2025 in Senate Sub 3. The briefing and the budget hearings provided updates on the FFA closure landscape, including the transfer data that I just spoke to, and also highlights of our discussions with stakeholders. We have continued to have these discussions, and again, we know that some of our partners have really picked up the mantle on some of the longer-term solutions as they evolve to be more insurance-side solutions, but we're happy to continue partnering on those. And with that, I'll stop and happy to take questions.
Good afternoon. I'm going to scoot this a little bit more. Good afternoon, chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Bridget Hernandez. I'm the assistant director for our children and family services division in Riverside County. We have approximately 3,400 kiddos in foster care, 35% of which are placed with a foster family agency home. We also have nearly 500 non-minor dependents in our extended foster care program. These numbers reflect both the scale and complexity of our work and the importance of maintaining stable supportive placements for our youth. Riverside County has recently experienced 12 foster family agency closures due to insurance challenges. This has affected 59 families and 92 children, with another closure expected next month. Several of these agencies provided intensive services foster care, supporting some of our highest needs youth. Losing these specialized programs limits placement options and makes it far more difficult to meet the complex behavioral and medical needs of our kiddos in family-based settings. This reflects a broader statewide and nationwide crisis impacting placement stability. When closures occur, our priority is ensuring children and families are not negatively impacted. We followed state guidance, prioritizing the porting of homes with children. We have successfully transferred approximately 65 families to our county. Communication during this time is continuous and transparent. However, the process is still resource intensive. Families sometimes required new background checks. Paperwork was often incomplete, and county workload continued to grow. Looking ahead, the new tiered rate structure launching in 2027 will align payments with each child's assessed needs and aims to support more family-based care. While promising, it does not directly address the liability facing both counties and foster family agencies, stemming from the expanded AB 218 statute of limitations, nor the resulting rise in insurance premiums driven by a limited insurance market, both of which have contributed to foster family agency closures. Counties like ours need assurance that the new rate structure accounts for these operational realities and provides the support FFA's need to remain viable without taking resources away to support children. To strengthen the system or the process I recommend continuing the expedited porting flexibility so thank you for AB 2333 as well as budgeting for insurance premium support for our foster family agencies modifying some Department of Justice processes to prioritize pathways for background clearance transfers to counties and other FFAs in the porting process and establishing a pre-closure checklist for foster family agencies. In closing, we are committed to putting children and families first. We ask the committee to consider both the financial reforms and the day-to-day operational realities counties and foster family agencies face so that every child can experience stability, safety, and the opportunity to thrive. Thank you for your commitment to improving our system.
All right, thank you. All right, our next panels.
Yes, hi, good afternoon, Chair Lee and members of this committee, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak today. My name is Anil Vodapardi. I serve as the CEO of McKinley. We are a nonprofit organization serving children and families involved in California's child welfare and behavioral health systems. Until about a year ago, McKinley operated a foster family agency. We made the difficult decision to close that program. And I'm here to offer the perspective of an agency that went through an FFA closure and helped port families and children to other providers. We thank Assemblymember Pellerin for bringing forward AB 2496 and appreciate that it not only addresses the porting of families when closures occur, but also the need for short and long-term solutions to the broader crisis that is driving FFA closures across California. That matters because porting is a response to closure, but it's not a solution to the crisis itself. When an FFA closes, the impact is on children who have already experienced trauma, instability, and loss. The impact is on resource families who have opened their homes to children with significant emotional, behavioral, and caregiving needs. Today in California, FFAs serve approximately 6,500 children and youth. An FFA is not just an administrative agency. It is a support system, a crisis response partner, and a key source of stability. From the perspective of an agency that closed their FFA, our focus was to protect children and support families through a transition that they did not ask for. Our team worked closely with counties, receiving agencies, and resource families to help keep children in their placements. To our knowledge, we did not see any children leave their resource homes because of the porting process. But that stable outcome should not be mistaken for a smooth process. We are thankful for the intent of AB 2496, but we would like to address some of those challenges. One of the biggest challenges we heard from resource families was that the porting itself often felt like they were being asked to start over. Families were frustrated when they were asked to repeat orientations, training, live scans, document submissions, or portions of the home study process. From their perspective, it felt less like a transfer and more like re-approval. A second challenge involved funding and the level of care determinations. In some cases, placements temporarily reverted back to the basic level of care rate, while the receiving agency and county processed a new determination. For families caring with children with higher needs that created financial uncertainty and added stress even when the rate was later corrected So while the porting process did not, in our case, result in children losing their placements, it still created frustration and strain for resource families. We also had a few resource families who chose to retire during that period, although they did not have children placed in their homes. In a system that is already losing providers and families, that type of attrition matters. Although McKinley closed its FFA, our commitment to youth and foster care did not end. We continue to serve these youth through programs such as our STRTP and specialty mental health programs through contracts with county agencies, which is why I want to emphasize that this crisis goes beyond FFAs. I would like to reiterate that, as has been stated earlier, 28 FFAs have closed since October of 2024. And California Alliance survey data shows that without bridge funding, another 34% of existing FFAs may close at least one location by this fall. Right now, FFAs are where the pressure is most visible, but the same insurance and liability pressures will also threaten other child-serving programs. For that reason, I urge the committee to continue to address the insurance and liability issues that are driving FFA closures. When a closure does occur, the porting process needs to be as seamless as possible for families and children. In closing, in closing our FFA, the hardest part was knowing that children and families who depended on that support system were being asked to absorb yet another disruption. Our team did everything they could to protect stability, and I am proud of that. But children's stability should not depend on the heroics of agencies and families while the larger crisis remains unsolved. First and foremost, our hope is that California will continue addressing the underlying issues that are threatening the survival of FFAs and potentially other critical child-serving programs. We also hope for a reporting process that is seamless, less duplicative, and not financially disruptive for children, families, and providers. Thank you for your time today.
All right. Thank you to our panelists. I'm going to see if Assembly Pellerin, do you want to start with any questions you have?
Well, thank you all for being here today, and I appreciate your work on this issue. I'm just, you know, there's a lot of challenges that remain to get this right. So what additional policy changes, do you have any ideas here on what we can be doing to make this crisis addressed, to address the crisis? If I may, the porting process that you talked about in terms of the feeling from family's experience, we heard the same thing. What I will say is that we all involved the state, the foster family agencies, as well as the county and the families themselves. We put the child first. and I think that is a really important piece to not lose sight of is it's really how can we maintain as much stability for this young person as possible. Some of the porting challenges were in the transferring of criminal background checks I try not to get too much into the weeds because I can go there But that process it sometimes was quicker to re scan a family and move them through which to your point that makes them feel like they're having to go through the process all over again. But the transferring of their criminal background was not always as easy from the Department of Justice in terms of a particular notification that is needed to transfer with the family, as well as just some of the other requirements. So looking at some of the specificities around particularly the background check clearance and being able to transfer information from a foster family agency to a county because the family had the choice if they were going to go to another foster family agency or to the county. And so making sure that the transferring can be the same from FFA to FFA or FFA to county. That's just one example. How many foster kids do you have in your
county that you're responsible for? In my county, I have about 34 kiddos in 3,400 children in foster care, and about 35% of that are with foster family agencies.
35%?
Mm-hmm. And there are others are in homes, group homes? Primarily relative or non-related extended family members, as well as other placement types, such as STRTPs. Okay. Some youth are in supportive independent living plans. Okay. Okay.
Yeah. And have you noticed, I mean, has there been any changes in your day-to-day work since the implementation of this bill?
Yes, specifically around the porting process. Having the ability to port is fantastic. And so really wanting that flexibility and the speed in which I think it was intended. But in reality, some of those barriers, like I said about the criminal background checks and being able to transfer the information rather than having families start all over. The primary reason behind that was these families had children already placed and we did not want those children impacted. And so that's why we moved to sometimes re-fingerprinting people and moving that way because it was quicker. So we have changed our processes in order to follow the guidance and the flexibilities allowed with the porting process. But the time is challenging.
And have you heard directly from foster parents about what's working well and where they need improvement?
I think that the things that was already stated in terms of their feeling, I get that. It did feel like it was a redo because there were times where we did do that in order to move them because there was a pending closure date. So that was the other thing that we had in terms of not a barrier, but a real world time limit, if you will. They were going to close in 30 days, 45 days, 60 days. And so we needed to move quicker. Okay.
And then for all of you, if you were sitting here a year from now, what metrics or milestones would you hope?
to report. I think I'll start with just acknowledging we would like to see either no closures continue or a very low rate of closures. I am only speaking to closures related to insurance. So, you know, there are obviously other reasons an FFA could close, but do you want to acknowledge that the bridge funding that was provided in last year's budget does seem to have substantially slowed the number of closures. And we have heard reports back from FFAs that it has been sort of vital in keeping their facility or their agency open. So we have understood that that has been important. We do still have some funding left to continue to provide when asked. But we know that has been has been important to keeping facilities open. I think the other thing we want to continue to see children staying in stable placement. That is sort of our North Star. And I have to say that has really been the North Star of everyone who has been working on this issue. So, you know, I'm happy to work with both Bridget and Neil on kind of where those pain points have come in, where the Department of Social Services can help. I'm not sure that the background check issue transfer is a social services issue or a Department of Justice, but it might be both of us. So happy to work through that and see how we can keep that running more smoothly.
And Assemblymember, speaking for an organization that unfortunately had to close their program, it's certainly our hope that no other FFAs have to make that difficult decision and that the issues that drove at the FFA closures are not going to impact other programs, which I fear that it will. What I really would hope to see in a year from now is a more robust insurance market, which means addressing the root causes of the insurance crisis. That is the North Star for us, yes. And, you know, AB 2496 was ultimately about protecting children during a period of uncertainty for California in this foster care system. I remember when I got the phone call from somebody who was working with NIAC in my district, and this was an issue I didn't have any knowledge about. And I just it was mid year where bills had already been introduced and I'm like, we got to do something. So we did a gut and amend to get something done. And I refer to it as a Band-Aid. And and yet we don't have a long term sustainable solution for this. So what gives each of you the most optimism about the future of foster care in California? And what is one any advice to us on on what we should be continuing to focus on as policymakers?
I'll start by just saying I think as a department and I think in conjunction with the legislature have really worked hard to increase our kin and family placement. So that to us is a huge North Star. When kin or family is not available, though, having a home setting for a child to live in where they are loved. And that was obviously just spoken about, you know, sense of belonging, a sense of love. That for us is really our North Star. We are hoping, as Bridget mentioned, that our new rate structure will also help basically lead to those outcomes. And we are hoping that it will have a positive impact on the bottom line for FFAs that have seen their insurance go up, that this will be somewhat right-sizing their payments to match their costs. Although I know there's still ongoing conversation about that, but that is the hope of part of TRS will help. will help adjust for that change We do think some portion of the insurance problem was that and this is from a lot of conversations that NIAC may have been undercharging for the risk And so some of this
is market correction, but as you mentioned, probably some portion of it is that people are needing to use, you know, more specialty insurance and, you know, not our regulated insurance market, but our, oh, there's a line, there's a name for it that the insurance people use that isn't coming to me, like the specialty insurance line. So. So I think for me is, um, one thing that I think is good about this work is that we do partner together. Um, as I said earlier, holding that, that kiddo first and foremost, and like our North star to reduce any unnecessary placement changes, unnecessary unintended consequences for decisions that are beyond their control. I think it's really important and how we do work together and at any time, but in these times of crisis, even though an agency, McKinley has been a longstanding partner to our County and it, that, that was a hit to get that. And I know that was a tough decision for them as well to make. Um, and, um, so I think our partnering and our working together is what's helpful. I would continue to encourage, um, you all to continue to maybe help us try to figure out how to address the things that are within our control. Um, again, with making sure that the impact to the children and the families that we serve are minimal. Um, so that would be one, my request. I, you know, and I'm hopeful because we are having the conversation and I think there is a lot of collaboration between the state, counties, private agencies. And so I'm very hopeful, you know, that that will continue and that we can see some fruitful outcomes. And have you been having ongoing discussions with Department of Insurance? Yes, we have. Some of the most intensive discussions were a few months ago, but we are continuing to work back and forth to update as new information is learned. And we do understand that they have made an outreach to their sort of national association of other states to understand what other options other states might be uptaking to help work on this issue because it is a national issue. Right. Okay. So they have been engaging and trying to come up with solutions. That's correct. Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your questions. I want to ask a couple questions to the department. So the original bill, AB 2496, gave that porting authority, expediting porting authority to the department. But that authority lapses come January 1, 2027. So if FFAs continue to close, what tools is the department going to retain to expedite transfers? And how is the department preparing for that transition? Because Senator Pelerin does have another bill, but that's a different piece this session. But so how is the department going to prepare for that January 1, 2027 when we lose that authority? Yeah, thank you for the question. We are looking down now to a ramp down of the expedited porting authority. As I mentioned, we have seen fewer closures in 2026. And if we continue to see fewer closures, the pressure obviously is reduced. However, I don't know that that is going to be the continued trajectory. So we will have to basically work with our FFAs and our counties to make sure they very clear that the expedited process will end at the end of the year That we do have a 60 requirement from licensees to tell us that they are closing but to encourage them to give us as much notice as possible because that allows us to work closely with them. And for the counties and the new FFA, if there is one to work closely with them, We're also open if there are other tools or guidance that could be provided by the state to help support the FFAs or counties. We're very open to additional conversations about that. So we do know it will be a shift. And as heard, it wasn't perfect, but it did actually provide real relief. So acknowledging that will be a loss. If I could add that the other piece is that we've continued, we had an agency close this month. We have another one that has given us notice that they're closing next month. Um, and so part of what the agencies share with me during conversations is it's like kicking the can down the road because they may be able to cover the insurance premium for this year, but when it's time for renewal. So many of them don't have an answer to the question about longevity because they don't know where they're going to get their insurance next and what the premium is going to be, if they can afford it, if there's going to be funding to support, um, those premiums. And so I think that's something else for us to consider. I think extending portability as long as possible beyond January of 2027 will allow for those flexibilities if and when additional agencies come to the point where they can't kick the can any further and they have to make that hard decision. And also the bill was supposed to preserve the child's existing rate through a transfer, which could be subject to later adjustment based on need. But in practice, have children kept both their rate and their resource family through these moves, or is the department seeing rate disruptions now that we've rolled this out for a year, well, two years or so? So I will say that our all-county letter did make it clear that the rate had to be sustained. I think, as was mentioned, that some agencies did struggle or saw a rate dip and then go back up during some of the process, so I think there were some hiccups there. My understanding is that has largely smoothed out, but I don't know. We haven't had reported continuing issues with that, but I don't know if either of you have seen experiences with that. It's been my, because initially there was, you know, we were trying to work through a new process. I have not had those concerns, but when you said that, I did make a note to follow up and check within my own county because that was made clear that the rate follows that child and through the portability. Right. And if we're essentially trying to center our work on the children, I mean, that is quite important to that piece. And then this is one more question to the department, and this is kind of speaking to one of witnesses' experiences too. So I understand there's 28 FFAs that closed across 13 counties, but how many of these agencies, they didn't close, they just ended placements? They didn't close altogether. How many of them continued to operate in different capacities, kind of like one of our panelists here, they just closed their placement aspect? Because I understand most of the insurance issue revolved around the placement aspect rather than all their other functions. So what is the universe of agencies in that regard where they continue to stay open, they just ended their placements? So that 28 number is of actual closures I don have data on how many of them actually retained other functions I can see if that something we can pull I not because the FFA is a license in itself I don know that we would always have insight into some of the other functions. I mean, obviously, if somebody held another license, like an STRTP, we would know that. But if they provided specialty mental health or some other WRAP services, we may not have all the data. So I will take that question back and see if we can provide additional data on those 28 closed facilities. Yeah, and it would be helpful to know how many of them, how many agencies in general have just closed placements altogether, because again, that is kind of the crux of our insurance issue aspect rather than the other functions of agencies. And I don't know if any other panels want to comment on this issue, because I think it's an important data point to have as we negotiate the other, you know, this is a very multifaceted jurisdictional issue. And I think that's an important data set to have with us. The agency that closed this month, they closed the placement side of it, but they have their transitional housing program for our transitional aged youth. So they were in some mental health programs as well. So their agency didn't cease to exist overall. It's just the placement side. Right. I think that's important to understand also from a capacity standpoint, if we have agencies just outright vanishing, even if we were to store and fix some of these insurance issues, it's important to know, you know, especially locale, sorry, geographically, if we have these infrastructure can vanish altogether, that's a different proposition for fixing this crisis. Just putting on the closure, because you said there hasn't been a closure in the last year. No, I can give you, it just has been greatly reduced. I can actually give you the breakdown. And is that as a result of the 31.5 million that the state put in the budget for? I don't want to say that is necessarily the only reason, but it does seem like a It seems like a pretty significant reason. Just to be clear, for this year, we've had three closures as of June 1st, 2026. It sounds like there may be at least one closure coming in June, but I haven't received data on that. And of those three FFAs that closed, they had 18 homes, seven with placements, with a total of 11 placements impacted. So that's what we've seen in 2026. And after today, I mean, how can we continue this communication and get questions answered? You know, we've been, you know, it's been difficult over the last year, I think, getting discussions on this issue. I think the department is always happy to, if we have outreach from you or your staff to answer questions. So you would be the point person? Okay. Yes, I can be the point person. Lovely. Thank you. And just to some of Pellerin's point, I think it is important why we have this legislative oversight kind of function to it is as you, You are also live crafting legislation, so this is a much more live issue than perhaps our issue one. Well, I mean, it is live in its own way as well. But I think it is important to continue to have that correspondence more than – and I know the department does a really good job at showing off to our budget hearings, and that is where a lot of these conversations happen too. But I would highly encourage all the stakeholders, especially departments, to continue to work with us over the interim aspect as well because, like I pointed out, the expediting authority is going to lapse. I think we have to get a good sense of what the impact will be and what we need to adjust. But I think Assembly of Pelerin brings up a lot of points about how we should stay connected on these things, because a lot of it, I think, will evolve even when we're out of session. And we don't want to wait until the annual budget hearings that occur to discuss these things. So I think it's really important that I would request that, in addition to some of those data items I asked for, we can continue to follow up on some of the work we're doing. And I invite Assembly of Pelerin to continue working with us on this. I'm going to move to, I want to thank all our panels for their incredible, for their feedback today and their testimony. I'm going to, open it up for public comments. So if you have public comment about AB 2496, this is the time to come up to the microphone and make a public comment. Thank you. Just one second, let's turn on the microphone first. I think it's on that end. I don't think the microphone's on.
Tess, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Adrienne Shilton with the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, and we represent nonprofit community-based organizations across the state, including foster family agencies. We are incredibly grateful for this oversight hearing today. You heard about the aftermath of an FFA closure from our member who was on the panel, McKinley, and we're so grateful to Assemblymember Pellerin for authoring AB 2496, which from our Perspective offers the best possible soft landing for families and for youth when the FFAs are forced to close their doors I don want to lose sight though of the underlying issue because from our perspective AB 2496 is really medicine for a symptom, and there's really an underlying FFA insurance crisis that we are desperately grappling to deal with. We are very grateful to partner with CDSS in the last budget year, 25-26 for some bridge funding, but that funding runs out. And so come fall, we're looking at more of our members on the brink. So about a third have already downsized or closed programs, and one in three are looking at closing or downsizing when this funding runs out. So just urge the committee to continue to make FFAs a priority as you are doing. This really is a broad insurance market failure, and nonprofit FFAs, we cannot solve this on our own. So we're really looking to our state partners for additional support on long-term solutions to this crisis. Thank you so much again. Thank you. Do you have any other members of the
public who should make public comments All right Seeing none I going to close this out here I want to thank all our panelists and Assemblymember Gibson and Assemblymember Pellerin for joining us today on Human Services We heard a lot today about implementation challenges with AP 2247 as well as implementation opportunities with AP 2496 And I highly encourage all stakeholders and departments to continue working with us on these issues because, like I said, a lot of these are live issues that impact the lives of some of our most vulnerable children. and I do think it's important we aired a lot of the issues that are out here in the oversight committee. So again, I want to thank everyone for being involved here, and I will adjourn this meeting of the Assembly Human Services Committee. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.