CALIFORNIA
Governor signs foster-care bills
It took more heart than muscle for the governor to
wield his mighty gubernatorial pen and sign into law a series of bills
that will change the lives of the 80,000-plus children in California's
foster-care system.
"It is very important to continue putting our children
first and doing everything we can do to protect their well-being," said
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a released statement. "I signed into law
legislation that will improve foster-care services."
It's about time. In the 2004 California Performance
Review Report to the governor, foster care was called a "system in
crisis" in need of more state leadership. These concerns followed a 2003
report by the Little Hoover Commission citing the system's lack of
leadership and accountability.
The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care also
called for sweeping reform, criticizing the system's lack of
collaboration between agencies and the courts.
Yet, until now, little has been done in response to
these calls for reform. In the meantime, thousands of children have been
forced to languish in a broken system where they are often shuffled from
one home, social worker and attorney to the next.
What the governor has done by signing these bills is
give these kids a better chance to find a permanent home and succeed
once they age out of the system at 18. In California, this is essential,
given that the state is home to the largest foster-care population in
the nation.
The signed bills include:
- AB1261: Requires an organized process for school
placements for foster youth and gives them access to their vital
health and education records once they come of age.
- AB1633: Gives foster youth maximum assistance
from Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits, and
also extends benefits to up to age 19 for foster youth seeking a
high-school equivalency certificate.
- AB1412: Gives foster youth more of a voice in the
system by giving them the right to be involved in his or her own
case plan for permanent placement.
- SB436: Provides a safety net and increases the
amount of housing available for pregnant and parenting foster teens.
- SB358: Gives more support to foster parents by
allowing them to choose their own babysitter.
- SB500: Keeps teen moms in foster care united with
their babies by providing placement of the whole family in a foster
home where teen parents can develop skills necessary to provide a
safe, permanent home for their children.
- AB519: Allows foster youth to emancipate from the
system with their legal connection to their biological families,
which reinstates their right to inheritance, Social Security and
other survivor benefits.
- AB824: Offers foster youth about to emancipate
transitional-housing assistance up to age 24.
- AB1116: Gives foster-care providers the right to
give injections and provide emergency assistance to foster children
if trained and licensed by health-care professionals.
"By signing this large number of bills, that reflects
his beliefs that every child in California should live in a safe, stable
permanent home. That's our goal for child welfare in California," said
Kimberly Belshe, secretary of California's Health and Human Services
Agency.
Signing these bills was a good start toward reaching
this goal. Now it's time to go beyond a piecemeal approach and fix the
structural problems throughout foster care.
The system is a county-run operation, where quality
and commitment vary within each of the state's 58 counties. In each
county, agencies dealing with financial, judicial, educational and
mental-health services operate independently from the other, creating
more instability and confusion for the foster youth.
These bills can help address the problems these foster
youth are dealing with now -- but the governor must think long term. If
he is truly committed to "protecting the well-being" of children, then
he must fix the serious flaws that have turned California's foster care
into a disgrace.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/14/EDGKVF7QQ01.DTL
