From the Governor’s Office:

Governor Schwarzenegger released a statement saying he “signed a package of legislation focused on expanding and promoting adoption opportunities and increasing services for children in California’s foster care system.”

According to his press release, the governor stated, “Every child deserves to grow up in a safe, nurturing environment and this legislation will expand adoption programs and services to ensure that opportunity for California’s foster children. It is also important to provide youth with the right tools when they transition out of foster care and these bills help make that possible by improving their access to quality education and providing them with resources to be successful as independent adults.”

Important Foster Care Bills Include:

AB 167 (Adams; R-Hesperia) exempts a foster youth who transfers from a new school during the eleventh or twelfth grade from completing locally-imposed course requirements that exceed minimum state standards, if those local requirements would prevent the student from graduating while he or she remains eligible for foster care.

AB 295 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) extends the Older Youth Adoption Pilot Project for six months until June 30, 2010, to provide participating pilot counties with sufficient time to demonstrate the effectiveness of pre-adoption and post-adoption services for older youth who have been in the system over 18 months and are living in group homes or non-related foster families.

AB 665 (Torrico; D-Fremont) expands the use of the federal adoption incentive awards that are received by the state as a result of increased adoptions of older children to include other legal permanency options available to older foster youth in order to increase the opportunities for these youth to be placed in stable homes.

AB 669 (Fong; D-Cupertino) exempts current or former foster youth age 19 years or under from California State University, University of California and California Community Colleges in-state residency requirements for tuition and fees.

AB 719 (Lowenthal; D-Long Beach) creates a 12-month transitional food stamp demonstration project that grants federally funded food stamps to foster youth for one year after their eighteenth birthday, when they age-out of the foster care system and no longer qualify for state aid.

AB 1325 (Cook; R-Yucca Valley) creates an alternative option to the definition of “traditional adoption,” in the case of adopting a Native American child. In traditional adoption, termination of parental rights of the biological parents must occur for a Native American child to be adopted.

AB 1393 (Skinner; D-Berkeley) requires the University of California, the California State University and California Community Colleges to give priority for on-campus housing to emancipated foster youth.

SB 597 (Liu; D-La Cañada Flintridge) makes changes to state child welfare law to conform to Public Law 110-351, the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. Modifies foster family agency staffing ratios and foster care group home payment rates and levels, allows a 10% reduction in points required for group homes to maintain an RCL in order to provide staffing flexibility to respond to the 10% cut in foster care rates; permits FFAs to utilize social work supervisory ratios up to 1:8 also to provide flexibility in responding to the 10% rate cuts; continues to staffing flexibility relating to nursing for CTFs. Also establishes the development of a plan for the ongoing oversight and coordination of health care services for foster youth and the development of a personalized transition plan for a foster youth in the 90-day period before he or she ages out of foster care.

Bills Aimed at Securing Federal Funding:

In addition, the Governor signed a series of foster care-related bills that make changes to existing state laws to ensure that California continues to receive important federal funding to maintain child welfare services:

AB 154 (Evans; D-Santa Rosa) specifies that any savings in state funds attained from an increase in federal funding for adoption services be reinvested in the foster care and adoption service system. The bill also requires adoption agencies to inform prospective adoptive parents of their potential eligibility for federal and state adoption tax credits.

AB 595 (Adams; R-Hesperia) to tighten requirements for approving criminal background checks for foster care family homes licensing in an effort to prohibit persons convicted of specific offenses from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

AB 938 (Committee on Judiciary) requires that when a child is removed from his or her parents and placed in foster care, the child’s social worker must within 30 days, conduct an investigation to identify and locate the child’s adult relatives and notify them that the child has been removed from his or her parents’ home.