Senate Standing Committee on Human Services

You'll call to order this Senate Human Services Committee on February 12. We are meeting here in room 2200. The Senate Human Services Committee would like to welcome to the hearing today all of you and here and the Members of the public, those of you on Zoom, and my colleague, Senator Menjivar. Today we'll be hearing on reforming children's child welfare system, recent mandates and innovations.

We'll be focused on the recent changes in our welfare system, how they're being implemented, challenges that remain, and how we can continue to protect children in our system. During today's hearing, we will be hearing from advocates, counties and youth who have lived experiences and I'm looking forward to the testimony of looking forward to the testimony and hearing how California is doing to serve the vulnerable population and what we can do to support them.

I do want to enter into the record brief background I'll be reading from our background paper California Child Welfare Services system is an essential component of the state's safety net. Social workers in each county receive reports of abuse or neglect. Then these are investigated and resolved. In these reports, when a case is substantiated, a family is either provided with services to ensure a child's well being and avoid court involvement, or a child is removed and placed into foster care.

In 2023, the state's child welfare agencies received 435,302 reports of abuse or neglect between October 22. Between October 2022 and September 2023, 48,295 reports contained allegations that were substantiated and 18,297 children were removed from their homes and placed into foster care through the CWS system. As of October 1 of 2023, there are 45,044 children in the system living with their parents or in out-of-home arrangements. In California, the CWS is state-supervised and county administered.

The 58 counties each maintain a county welfare agency that has a 24 hours response system. The system receives and investigates reports of suspected neglect or child abuse. The CWS is California's primary statewide interventions program for children who have been abused, neglected or exploited.

The goal of this program is to protect our children through an integrated service delivery system and to provide prevention and intensive services to families to ensure that enough child safety, permanency and well being to allow families to stay together in their own homes exists. If a child is deemed to be at risk by a county social worker with oversight by the local juvenile court, a temporary out of home placement is arranged with the goal of reunifying the family once it is safe for the child.

If family reunification is not possible, a permanent placement in the safest and least restrictive environment is arranged and monitored by county child welfare agencies. The California Department of Social Services serves as the state agency responsible for oversight of the CWS program and collaboration with our county, federal and tribal partners. The CWS program provides services to children and families at the county level, providing services through four various components, emergency response, family maintenance, family reunification and placement, and permanent placement.

We're also going to be looking at the most recent reform, the Families First Prevention Services Act. In 2018, Congress passed and the President signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which includes the Family's first Prevention Services Act. This act includes two major reforms of how Federal Title Four Funds can be used.

First, it reformed the way that child welfare financing worked, allowing federal dollars to be used for prevention services rather than only for a child who has been removed from their family and placed into foster care. Second, it limited federal financial support for children and teens in group care. And under this act, placements and settings with more than six children for more than two weeks would generally not be eligible for federal funding.

The combination of these changes impacts both how services are delivered and how they are reimbursed, with continued focus on the benefits of children remaining in their home or in the care of family Members. We will also be looking forward in this hearing. In the past decade, we've seen a series of sweeping reforms in child welfare space.

These reforms have acknowledged the poor outcomes that occur when placing children out of home or away from family, and work to focus on keeping children either with their parents or in the care of family members. California has a commitment, and we will continue to work diligently to the reforms set forth in the family's first act and begun the process of this implementation.

As with all sweeping reform programs, challenges will arise and offer opportunity for legislation to fulfill the vision of this act that is the purpose of today's hearing. We have a very full agenda with wonderful speakers, and in order for us to allow everyone to have adequate time to present, I'm asking that we keep our remarks from five to 7 minutes to allow for questions. So thank you so much for being here.

I'd like to invite our Director, Kim Johnson of California Department of Social Services to the table, as well as Daniel Webster from California Child Welfare Indicators Project. These two witnesses will be presenting on how the state and federal laws have changed to focus on family-based systems of care. Thank you so much for being here, and whenever you're ready, please begin.

Good morning and thank you, Madam Chair Members Kim Johnson, Director of the California Department of Social Services, and appreciate very much the Committee's focus this morning on this critical topic, and as you referenced in your opening remarks, Madam Chair, child welfare in California is county administered with state oversight. The primary goal of our child welfare system is reunification, and when reunification cannot happen, it's to ensure that the children are in a permanent and loving family.

California took on what we reference as the continuum of care reform, or CCR. We actually began implementing CCR in 2017, and it again was founded upon the collective belief that all children served by the foster care system need, deserve, and have an ability to be part of a loving family and not to grow up in a congregate setting.

In addition, I want to note that it's critical to note that the disparities and disproportionality, particularly of black, African American and Native American children, which have been historically overrepresented in the foster care system, that that inequity is also partly driving our policy and the work that we're doing today.

Our major elements of the continuum care of reform included the broad expansion of the use of child and family teaming, which ensures that services delivered to children and families in the context of a single integrated system the Integrated Core practice model, which serves as a framework that sets that child and family team as the primary vehicle for the team based process and implementing four phases, including engagement, service planning, monitoring, and adapting and transition and the creation of an emergency caregiver program, which allows youth to be immediately placed with a relative or family member before that individual is approved as a resource family.

Also, CCR included establishing rate equity for children placed in relative homes to ensure funding provided is commensurate with needs and to promote children staying within their own family even if higher levels of funding and services are required and establishing a new home-based family care rate structure that is tied to the child's assessed level of care needs so that children do not have to move placments to get additional funding and support.

Expansion of the intensive services foster care program to support youth with complex or higher levels of needs in homebase settings funding to support best practice and innovations in family finding and foster parent recruitment and support and finally, new requirements for congregate care providers aimed at ensuring that those settings are providing high quality and therapeutic supports to meet individual treatment needs and to ensure that youth are transitioned to a less restrictive setting as soon as they no longer have a need for that therapeutic or higher level setting.

Outcomes of CCR in related recent reforms in recent years include that youth placement into congregate care has decreased by almost 60%, while placements into home-based settings the ultimate goal for foster youth has increased. Foster youth supervised by county child welfare departments. There's been a 24% increase in youth that have a first placement with a relative or extended family member and a 7% increase with youth whose predominant placement is with a relative or extended family Member.

Placement stability indicators for children remaining in their first placement have also continued to grow. 75% of youth that had their first placement with a relative and are still in care at 12 months are still with that same relative. The number of resource family homes approved each quarter, one of the most critical elements of the California foster care system, has steadily increased and more than 87% of youth in the short term therapeutic residential treatment programs receive critical mental health and therapeutic services.

This is a dramatic increase in youth receiving these supports due to the focused reforms under CCR. So just a few of the outcomes I want to highlight. I also want to just note, over the past several years, we've also together, Governor Newsom and this legislative body, have put additional investments like the Center for Family finding engagement and support.

And that, again, is focused investment to ensure that counties both have the resources needed to really do the family finding obligations, but also that we're lifting up the best practices in the space. As you mentioned, chair, as California was leading the way with CCR at the federal level, the Family First Prevention Services Act was signed into law in 2018. Similar goals in terms of reduction and reducing entries into congregate care.

And again, it also had some additional requirements related to having an assessment by a qualified individual to determine how a child's needs can be met in a home based setting. There was also requirements for discharge planning and family based aftercare supports to make sure those transitions were successful. It required additional documentation of child welfare and probation case plans, and it also required additional court oversight of placements into short term residential therapeutic programs.

That's kind of what we're referencing as part four of the Family First Prevention Services Act. It also had something called Part One, which is the preventative component of Family First. And that was again, to ensure that we are utilizing those specific evidence-based mental health, substance use, and in-home parenting skill-based services preventing youth's entry into foster care. These services provided the children at imminent risk of entry, their parents, kin caregivers, pregnant or parenting youth, and also larger populations.

In California, we have our five-year prevention plan that was approved by the Federal Government in April of last year. In addition, again, we had invested a Legislature and the Governor in a 224 million one-time block grant related to comprehensive prevention services.

To date, the Department of Social Services has reviewed and approved 51 of those plans at the local level, and we have a number of partners that we're working with to again lift up best practice, have the ability for peer to peer support, as well as mapping out the community based pathways that are preventative going forward.

So a lot going on in that space as well, and always important to remember that we are also talking about the youth we are supporting currently, but also doing that prevention work ahead. As I mentioned earlier, we also are being very intentional about focusing on the disparities and disproportionality. So just internal to the Department, I wanted to lift up a couple of things.

We at DSS have created higher-level leadership and Assistant Director of Equity and Inclusion to really advise and assist Executive leadership in the formation and implementation and evaluation of policies and programs, promoting equity and addressing these disparities.

We've also significantly expanded our office of tribal affairs and their primary focus is looking at compliance with the Indian Child Welfare act, which is really focused on looking at preventative services, again, hopefully preventing those higher levels of intervention, looking at the whole family in their cultural context and having active efforts that go beyond the provision of reasonable services by requiring providers to connect the family directly to service and supports rather than referrals.

California has adopted many laws that go beyond the federal Indian Child Welfare act, but we've also again invested in tribes and tribal communities. So, for example, again, the Governor and Legislature did one of its first in the nation investment in the tribal Dependency Representation program, which is supporting tribes to have the ability to have representation in their dependency youth proceedings.

We've also invested in the tribally approved homes, which is funding to eligible Indian tribes to assist in funding the costs associated with recruiting and approving homes for the placement of an Indian child. As we turn forward and think about what's next, we certainly have more work to do to address inequities and ensuring that we are fulfilling the promise and objectives of CCR. We also have to do more to appropriately serve California's foster youth with the higher levels of needs of care that are going unmet.

As we address these gaps, it's essential that the investments support the robust continuum of care to ensure that the transition pathways for all children can be again focused on that family based environment. The Governor's Budget includes a proposal to restructure our rates. This was something that we had put forward before, so there was a statutory requirement that by January 1 of 2025 that we have our new rate structure.

So we are proposing to restructure our rates so that they are based on the child's level of assessed need and strengths and not based on the placement type. That's very significantly different. And in fact, California would be the first state in the nation to take this approach should this proposal be adopted. It's an investment in our future and an important step towards making sure that children in foster care receive the support they need to thrive.

The structure invests directly in family based placements to keep youth connected to their relatives in the community of origin. It's based, again on the child's identified needs and strengths as identified by the standardized assessment. We call it the cans assessment tool, and again, not tied to placement. And it specifically includes funding to support strength building and to address a child's youth immediate needs.

It advances equity again in a child welfare system by strengthening our Ken first culture, keeping families together whenever possible, and putting services in place based on those child's needs, not based on the placement type. So we look forward to giving you more details of that proposal as we go through the budget proceedings. And glad to answer any questions of the Committee.

Thank you so much, Director Johnson. Sounds very promising. I would love to hear more about that proposal. We'll now move on to California Child Welfare Indicators project lead Daniel Webster and I understand you also have a presentation.

I do, Madam Chairperson. As an academic, I was planning on like a three-hour discourse. 7 minutes. I'm going to keep my remarks brief, but you do have the slides in front of you. For your reference, I will say I'm the data guy, principal investigator of a long-standing partnership between the University of California and the State Department of Social Services, the counties and other stakeholders of California. I was delighted to hear your comments at the opening of the meeting around data points.

My colleague, Director Johnson, also put out data points. I think it underscores the need. We need good data for our decision support and to evaluate the impact of our policies and programs and to help us to guide questions of new policies that we think we may want to implement. And so, as the representative, the leader of the partnership at Berkeley, with over two decades of working with the State Department of Social Services, it's an unprecedented partnership with.

Our mission is to provide reliable, accurate and timely data to do that kind of support. The slides that you have in front of you are all taken from a public website that the URL is on the front page. I was unable to call it up here because of firewall issues, but you can go there. It's publicly available. It has been for more than two decades. Many of the data points that you referenced, and then my colleague Kim Johnson referenced are taken from there.

And I can't underscore enough how important that is, that we need to have accountability and transparency, and by having those data available, which to the department's credit, it has done. And it's a model for other states. And without being grandiose, it's really without peer. I don't think we have any other state in the nation that has as much publicly available data to guide us as what's on the Berkeley website. I have a number of different slides I could show you.

The rates that have been declining over past years. And yet when you break apart any given rate, anytime you look at a data point, a summary, for example, the declining rates of children who are the subject of allegations, substantiations, entries to care. Anytime you summarize data, important detail is lost. And so you need to be able to stratify, disaggregate, break apart different data points to look at sub populations in order to target your resources.

And so I can show you this great picture of declining rates of system performance. But when I break any given rate apart, for example, this is entries to care rate declining a little bit lower than it is nationally, than our counterparts nationally. But when you break it apart by ethnic group, for example, as Director Johnson mentioned, we have racial disparities. And that's what this graph shows us showing the different contact points and the racial disparities at the different levels of system contact.

Even when you control for poverty, we see persistent disparities. And as Director Johnson mentioned, the state and our county partners are working hard to make inroads on that. We talked about the declining entries, but larger proportion placed with relatives, smaller proportion placed with concrete care. That's a good thing. There are federal measures, all great measures of system performance. Again, these are statewide performance. I won't dilate on our performance on any of them.

I'll just skip to the bottom line, which I would say is no outcome measure in isolation is enough to tell you how a system is performing. All the measures that I provided for you and that are on our website are absolutely critical. They're necessary, but they're not sufficient. Thank you. We need to be able to ask good research questions. We need to have these data available not only for our practitioners, but also for our stakeholders.

I'm very happy to hear that we have practitioners and folks with lived experience here today, because again, not only does not one data point tell you the whole story, but you need to know the story behind the numbers. You have to have multiple perspectives that can engage in a conversation on what the data mean and how we can use them to improve our system. And I think we've moved in that direction in a lot of different levels across the state.

And so no single measure tells us the whole story. We need to make good research questions and we need to have multiple perspectives to help inform the conversation. Finally, I'll say child welfare system data by itself is not enough.

I know that the state has been doing a lot of data linkages, and I think that in order to get a more comprehensive picture, we need to move towards data linkages so that we can see cross system impact that affects the child welfare system, linkages with education, linkages with employment, linkages with mental health, and other systems like that.

So I think by the more data we can bring to bear, the more nuanced and detailed questions we can answer that can help us target our resources to the populations that need our help.

Thank you so much. I'm also a data hungry person, so I really appreciate you bringing this forward and making those key trends and considerations at the forefront. I do want to open it up to questions. Senator Menjivar, I will give you the space.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, I love the opportunity to be able to get another hearing out of my sub three on top of this. This is so great. I'm Director Johnson, first time hearing some preliminary information on the foster rate reform. Looking forward to diving more into that. As you mentioned, the budget proceeds, but you ended your comments on a topic that I think is really important. You said important that the investments meet, and then I forgot the rest.

But that part was really important because I don't think we're meeting that investment. I think, to quote calm matters last year on this topic was no budget shortfall. Lack of political will or mixed-up priorities should further delay support. They need to thrive. When we talk about our foster youth and we continue to have this foster system to homeless pipeline, that I think we really, regardless of what's going on, really dive in.

So there's a couple of things, and you shared in the foster rate reform, some things that maybe are going to replace some of the investments that we're taking away from it. But I'm just still very worried about the programs that are there to support our placements. The programs that are there to support extended foster care are kind of being pulled away and how we're seeing we're going to supplement that lack of investment, ensuring that the foster kids are thriving. So it's a very big, vague question. Just anything you can address further address on that.

Appreciate that very much, Senator, and absolutely look forward to having more discussion related to the rate reform proposal. And yes, there are additional proposals in the budget, one of which is related to the supervised and independent living program. There was an additional supplement that was proposed that is proposed to be removed and so completely appreciate the point of then how are we looking holistically at ensuring that youth in the foster care system, and especially transitional age youth, have the supports they need to thrive?

And I think that's again what we are trying to accomplish with the rate reform proposal. Certainly it's a three tier, with the third tier having an a and b component structure, but again, having additional resources to really support and meet the immediate needs of youth and in a strengths building way. Right. We're looking at how do we not only invest in supporting the strengths of youth, but also how are those things critical to maintaining that stability and support going forward?

So completely appreciate that we have to be doing all of those things together. And additionally, as it relates to having funding that follows the needs of the youth, that there is additional capacity building work that we'll have to do as a state and working with our county partners and our tribal partners to really make sure that those robust supports are available and again, available, whether the youth is in a congregate setting or the youth is in a family based setting.

So there's some additional work we'll need to do on building out the continuum as well. That's kind of predicated on this new reform structure and proposal that we're going forward. But you're absolutely right that we have to be thinking about the full kind of age span and experience of youth. And as they are getting to older ages, what are the supports that we can put in place to keep them connected?

Ways in which they're connected to the rest of the safety net services like Calfresh supports and other maybe housing supports and those kinds of things. We also, the Governor and Legislature, have supported in a guaranteed income pilot that's focused on former foster youth as one of the primary populations. So we need to take what we're learning from that experience and applying it as we're going forward.

So just appreciate that it's not only again, just about the time experienced in foster care, but what's happening post and how are we getting that navigation and support connections prior to exit of the system?

Yeah, I agree with you. I've been doing a tour of our juvenile halls and just various fire camps, and a majority of these kids, they tell me I was in the foster system, there's also that pipeline into jails. Could you share a little bit how the Department is anticipating replicating or supplementing the services that first provided the family urgent response system if that program goes away, what other program does the department see as giving those services that were needed to families?

Thank you, Senator, for the question. So, yes, the governor's January 10 also proposed a funding reduction and elimination of the family urgent response system. This is again, as it's titled, an ability to help connect families to the supports they need at the time they need them, kind of the 24/7 availability and then connecting to other resources should they need them, beyond that phone call and that conversation.

So what I would say to that particular proposal and what else is in place is certainly the Governor and Legislature have had a significant and unprecedented investment in children and youth behavioral health, and there are a number of resources that have been stood up and that are in the pipeline to be stood up in connection to that.

It's about, again, making sure youth have direct connection to the resources should they need them, whether that's a counselor or a case manager, but also for families in different respects that we have, it's not exactly the same. But again, we would expect to make sure we're making intentional bridges to some of those supports should that proposal go forward as a reduction as it's proposed.

Madam Chair, can I squeeze in one more question in here? Let's switch over to, we talk about the importance of keeping kids and the families and the failure to protect topic has been in the news for the past couple of months, and it's split down the middle between advocates of we should keep them in there, post a domestic violence call because it causes more harm to remove them, and others saying, no, we need to take them out.

What, if any, is the Department in coalition building doing around this topic to find a better approach to what I think it's not working so well.

Yeah. Just again, appreciate the question, Senator, and underscore the trauma associated with being removed from your family. Just completely underscore the, can't emphasize that enough. Some that say liken it to open heart surgery. It's a huge, significant change for children in that experience and certainly want to really think about how we're taking it as such in terms of the trauma informed approaches that we're having.

I will say that in this particular space, there's a few different conversations and tables set to explore this, one of which is what we're referencing as moving from mandated reporting to community supporting and that's a task force and effort that's part of a Subcommitee of the Child Welfare Council that's looking holistically about entry into care.

To your question and point, and how are we, when we can connecting families to the supports they need, as opposed to that referral that may end up with the removal, how are we looking at all of those processes in place? And again, being very mindful and thoughtful about that decision point. Right. We say keeping families together whenever possible, recognizing in some cases it's not so. That is one space.

We also have actually been able to partner with philanthropy to look specifically about how we're supporting survivors of domestic violence and abuse and in that report, which will be out likely in the coming weeks. So we're happy to follow up with the Committee and share that has a bit about recommendations in this space that you're referencing on how we're thinking about what the survivor needs, how the connection for their children, what do we need to look at in a policy lens in that space?

So it's essentially recommendations to the Department through focus groups of both survivors, community-based organizations, counties, as well as state staff. So we're glad to again, share that with the Committee coming forward. So again, I think to your point, thinking about how serious that decision is and what is in the best interest of the youth and family has to lead that.

And then again, how if a youth is going to be able to stay with the parent, the surviving parent, what are the resources that immediately need to be put in place to connect them? We've done a lot of policy change together, the Administration and Legislature in this space so that things like self attestation as opposed to proving you don't have access to income of the partner.

We've done a lot of work here to make sure that that ability to connect to the safety net is immediate and it makes all the difference in the world of the ability for the survivor to be stable and connected as they're healing. So I would expect that we'll have more conversation in this space to come. But again, we have two kind of focused conversations intentionally there that we're glad to bring forward in terms of next steps and recommendations on policy development.

Thank you.

Can I just interject something about what Director Johnson was saying around, for example, the task force shifting from mandated reported community, supporting the need for data to help us to guide that enterprise. Right. So we showed the numbers of children who were referred any given year. You mentioned it, it's over 400,000.

Every year, a third of those are evaluated out right and that is the population that we are hoping to help so that they don't come back to the attention of the Department, because with every subsequent report, the risk level goes up. And so we want to try to map out the needs of that original population that comes to our attention. She mentioned domestic violence, substance use disorder, mental health, these kinds of things.

We have the data resources we need to bring them to bear to find those target populations, and then to map out the needs and the services available in the community so that we can try to get those folks the help that they need so that they don't come back to the attention of the Department. And so that's just one place where I'm hoping and I'm confident, and the data is going to help us to guide and evaluate this policy. It's important, this change, I fully support it, but we want to be mindful, planful, and make sure that we're tracking safety across the board.

Dr. Webster, what is it going to take for us to ensure that we have adequate data?

I think that we need the commitment, first of all, and I believe that we have that from our colleagues, and we have the commitment to do that. I think there's going to be some figuring out to do, for example, of mapping the community pathway. For example, there's the populations of folks that are a little bit nervous about coming to the attention of the child welfare system. They get evaluated out.

They may not be that willing to connect with some other thing if they feel some other system, if they feel it's a form of surveillance. And so we have to respect that. So building that community pathway, mapping out the resources, mapping out the needs of our target populations, I think the data are out there. We just need to bring the minds to bear.

We have the commitment and we need to bring the minds to bear to figure out how to do it in a planful way that supports our families and brings them in and assures them that this is not surveillance. We're just trying to help you.

Great. Thank you. So I'm asking the questions about data, because a lot of times we're asked to make decisions around policy without having the data in front of us. We know the stories, we know what we experience within our constituent circles, but we've struggled, and in one of those areas has been services and policy for LGBTQA plus youth. And even looking at today's presentation, it's not a data set that we're able to put our thumbs on.

But I do think here in California, we are seeing those trends of a subset of youth, particularly our LGBTQA plus youth, that we're seeing different trends and indicators. What could you say in that aspect?

No, that's an excellent point, Senator. And we do need the data to track that population. We have introduced some fields into our statewide automated tracking system in the past year or two to do that, but uptake on such things takes time. Not everyone is aware of it. I don't know that they're mandated fields, and our workforce, they have many things to do. And so entering data is oftentimes not at the top of their to do list.

But I will say the capacity to track it is in there. I think we need to keep training our workforce in how to engage with the populations, to even find for them to disclose, depending on where they fall on that continuum. And then we need to build in. I mentioned racial disparities. We need to build in disparities for those kinds of LGBTQ population, the disabled population. That is not strictly just the race equity.

We have equity issues for other populations of needs such as LGBTQ, and I think we've got the data capacity to track it. We just need to do a better job on the uptake.

Yes, I would agree with that because I think also the disability population, as well as English as a second language population. One of the reasons why I love California is the diversity. When I look at programs within the child welfare sector and certainly policy decisions that come in front of this body, that is what I'm missing in terms of our equity lens, because I don't believe in one size fits all programming.

And when I hear about placements that go awry or that don't work, because there is not that connection between the cultural connection, the language, the social connection, these are more traumatic events for our young people and at times eliminate those caregivers from being part of the cycle of care for our kiddos. So that data, for me is missing.

And in terms of how we make our decisions, to Dr. Webster's point, how we make our decisions around placement, around services, around funding, I think we are in the day of age that we should be collecting that information and making decisions for our youth based on what's better for Johnson or Ms. Johnson. I did hear you as well. I loved the shift from mandated reporting to community supporting. I think that is phenomenal.

I think taking away the kind of punitive aspect of asking for help and to acknowledging that a family system needs extra support and that we have those services available, I think helps us not only to build community, but to help build that foundation for that family success. So I'm excited to hear about that. I did want to acknowledge one other aspect in my questions. So, Dr. Johnson, you've been with us in your current role since July of 2019.

Coming from the education sector, I know that the pandemic had a profound impact on the relationship between our kids, parents and caregivers, and just the family as a whole. We saw families and kids being at home, out of the school system for a long period of time, and with that social emotional behaviors, deficiencies, and just that lack of stability of having a safe place to go for food.

For structure, learning, positive mentors in the adult world. Can you say a little bit about how you've seen the shift in what California needs, and are you seeing adequate attention in terms of resources to be able to respond to that shift?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for that question and really appreciate the point about timing and pandemic. And certainly while many of us were trying to navigate staying home and what that meant, we were also being intentional to think about when home wasn't a safe place to be.

And so we had a number of investments that, again, the Legislature and Administration put forward in that time to ensure that those resource families had additional supports that the family who was connecting to Developmental Services that may not have been able to get to them had the wedge for the infant that allowed them to do work on their motor skills, those kinds of things. So there was a lot of intentional investment in the pandemic, thinking through the families who would need some additional support.

Even managing the idea of not being able to connect with education was a greater burden. We had a lot of kind of focus groups and conversation with families to get direct access to say, what do you need? What is it that you need right now in terms of engagement and support? And certainly have done a lot in that space. And I think to some of the data that Dr. Webster presented, we also, of course, saw referrals decline significantly during the pandemic.

And that's a lot related to mandated reporting, education being one of the primary reporters going forward. So I think, again, being very intentional about the investments that we've been making since then and how do they specifically address the needs of youth and foster care has been the lens by which we've done that.

Whether we're looking at investments on the healthcare services side and CalAIM or BH connect, it's again, how are we thinking through how these new opportunities and resources are going to be supporting the youth in foster care? So a lot of work has been done in that space. Again, I mentioned very, very briefly, we do also recognize and acknowledge that there's more work to do in some gaps for youth with higher needs.

And so the work through what was referenced as Assembly Bill 2083, our system of care work, which brings together those interdisciplinary teams of the education partners, Developmental Services, Healthcare, social services, at the state level, but also at the local level, with memorandums of understanding of how they're coming together around a table saying, this is what this youth needs, what can I bring to bear to support them is a big piece of our work of the system, not systems, a system of care for youth and really ensuring that we're having consistency in the trauma informed or healing informed principles and practices that we're taking on.

So we have put forward a number of deliverables in that space to identify strategies that we need to continue to, again, address gaps for youth that have greater and higher needs. It's again multipronged to say we want to prevent more youth from. What are we learning about the youth with higher needs? What can we do to prevent that need for more intensive services? What innovative models of care can we create and just really want to appreciate? Some of your other panelists who will talk about it from a provider perspective of being able to really adapt their services to the needs of the youth, as opposed to having a model that the youth has to fit into right.

It's about meeting the needs of the youth. So a lot of work has been done on piloting and innovative models of care. We've done additional investment that's child specific, so counties can say this youth is going to take more investment, and we've put more resources forward to say, okay, here's a way to be able to address and meet those needs. And we've also invested in looking at that continuum again. So each county has its own landscape and set of services.

How are we, again, looking at that holistically, so that, again, whomever shows up today, there's a place in a way in which the resources that they need are going to be addressed in their communities. That's another investment that we put together Legislature and Administration to look at that. So we do have things both operationalized and things that are like the pilots that are still standing up.

But again, I think to your point, we always have to be intentional and focused on this population, no matter what the investment is, because, again, we recognize that families and youth don't come in the silos, that we have to think about that focus, and especially for youth in foster care.

Can I do a follow up, Madam Chair?

Follow up question, how can that be incorporated in the IDD population?

Yes.

They are. So we have a few things there. Our most recent report, which I'm again glad to make sure that the Committee has a copy of, actually looks at data, looks at youth who are part of the foster care system but are also part of the Developmental Services system and they have co occurring issues. And then, so how are they getting the concerns and thoughts about the needs that they have and looking at placement options? Right. How are we intentionally thinking about that population?

What is it that the Regional Centers might have that maybe is not available here? So we have a report that kind of looks at the numbers of youth that have those co occurring needs, but also in terms of what I'm referencing, the system of care partners. They are one of the partners sitting at the table to again, bring resources to bear where needed.

And I think there's more work we want to do there also in looking at blending and braiding funding to make sure that's not an obstacle. But again, they are part of our technical assistance calls for youth that have case funding. So again, it's about having those partners at the table and everyone bringing their supports based on the needs of the youth in front of them.

Thank you. I just want to wrap up with some looking forward questions for thought being an outcome of our foster care system. I think it's so important for us not only through the continuum of care, but also to see the impact of the services as our young people grow into adults. I'm also curious about how we are measuring and tracking suicide rates. I know that we're tracking incarceration and looking at the disparities there as well.

But I want to see those stories, those outcomes of the investment that we're making in our communities and in our youth and families, and how is that impacting over the long term of the family's life. So that's the data and anything that we can do to help support that continuum of study, of data sets to help underscore the importance of the program. So thank you both for being here.

We look forward to seeing the report, and I know that my colleague, our Chair of our Sub-Three, is also looking at ways of how we are going to address this budget deficit this year. So thank you very much. Next, I'd like to call our second panel up. We'll be looking at issues of concern and promising practices. And I understand Lauren Mendez, Child and Family Policy Institute of California, our youth engagement project leader. And we do have a time crunch. So I want to make sure.

I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Jennifer Rodriguez, Executive Director of Youth Law Center. We do have a time crunch, so I'm going to invite you to present first, and we'll address questions before we go into our other speakers.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Jennifer Rodriguez and I'm the Executive Director of the Youth Law Center. We're a national legal advocacy organization.

We're based here in California, and we have a mission of protecting and advancing the civil rights of children in youth in foster care so that they have the opportunity to thrive and to have the lives that they deserve.

In addition to system change advocacy, using litigation, policy reform and movement lawyering to support youth advocates, we also work directly with counties across the state in partnership with CDSS and CWDA as part of our Quality Parenting Initiative.

We work in partnership with those county child welfare leadership and the most important stakeholders in those counties who are resource parents, birth parents, youth, and the line staff who are working directly with those families and youth in order to identify and to make the changes necessary to achieve the goal of realigning foster care towards the most important goal, which is that every child and youth lives in a family and receives excellent parenting and changing local policy and practice to meet that goal.

I'll share a little bit more about that shortly, and you'll hear from two of the amazing county child welfare leaders who we do this work with shortly. But I'll say now that I began my advocacy as a youth member of the California Youth Connection many, many years ago after spending my own childhood in foster care institutions and being dumped on the streets at 18, without a family, without a home, or without any way to support myself.

And I've now been a lawyer at the Youth Law Center for the past 16 years. And with all of those experiences combined, I can say that I see the work that we're doing together with the counties and the state and the Quality Parenting Initiative as the absolute most important priority if we ever want to realize the goal of a family based foster care system that can heal rather than harm.

If, in the event, we absolutely have to separate a child from their natural family and every single thing that we do from the time a child welfare agency first touches a child or youth and their family to the moment that they're leaving, foster care, can either protect and nurture and expand their strength in their relationships, or it can fragment and destroy those relationships.

And when we fragment and destroy those relationships, the consequences for youth, for families who love them and who try to care for them and for our communities are enormous.

You need only talk to any young person who's been labeled as having needs that are too complex for foster care to figure out how to meet, or to the agencies that are struggling, how to figure out plans to care for those youth.

And you'll hear stories of dozens, sometimes hundreds, unfortunately, of disrupted relationships. Relationships that have been disrupted with their families, with their siblings, with teachers, with friends, with neighbors, with their community. Children need relationships to survive.

They're like air or food or water for their survival. And we, through many of our accepted child welfare practices, disregard and sever those relationships casually, as if they don't matter. We fail to do the work to find relatives and support them fully so that they can care for their kin.

We don't support youth and families to develop relationships through the behavioral health and infant and dietic mental health interventions that we know work.

We keep birth and resource parents apart, preventing their ability to love and coparent youth. At the same time, we fail to support resource families to keep siblings together or to work together to maintain siblings relationships.

We brutally disrupt use relationships with resource families, siblings in the home, friends, and community when we abruptly move them without a plan structured to maintain relationships, even when that move is good and they're going to family or they're reunifying.

We don't prioritize making sure there's a family involved, when short term residential treatment is needed. We frequently make that treatment entirely ineffective for youth, by failing to do that.

I could go on and on with a million examples, and these are only the common examples of practices we see for youth and children who are already in foster care.

I know you're going to hear on the later panel about how this impacts children and families who have come to the system's attention because they're struggling, but where a removal has not yet happened. We have so much work to do in this area.

But luckily there are wonderful child welfare leaders in counties like Sanya and David who have committed to doing that hard work with us through the Quality Parenting Initiative. And who give me hope that children will have a different experience than what I had and will not feel alone in the world or lack the family and support system to raise their own children as I did.

And your question about the suicide rate with young people is right on, and where that is driven from is from young people feeling like nobody cares whether they're alive or dead in the world. And I want to thank you for your grace today in accommodating my ridiculous schedule and the fact that I have to jump in and jump out to testify.

This hearing conflicts with a convening that we're hosting just down the street at the California Endowment on a new report that we spent the last two years working with. With hundreds of young people in foster care.

With hundreds of young people in foster care and futurists from the Institute for the Future, focus on how to really reimagine extended foster care.

The care that we provide for young people between 18 and 21 years of age, to prepare them for a decade that is coming, that is likely to be marked by forces we never could have imagined when the legislature first created the option to use federal and state funds to extend foster care to the age of 21.

At that time, 2010, the concepts that youth life would be impacted by a regular need to relocate due to climate disasters, fires, floods, by the pandemic, by an extremely volatile economic situation, by a lack of housing, by the prospect of having an algorithm for your first boss, or working virtually so you only know your coworkers as Zoom squares, or what jobs are even available as first jobs. Those things were all unimaginable in 2010, but yet here we are.

Our report is the first step in imagining the extended foster care that we need to create to ensure that our youth can both survive and thrive over the next decade. I hope that you'll read the Eeecutive summary and report. I brought some of those for you guys here today, but I want to just leave you with this highlight.

In this process, which we spent almost two years on, when youth were asked what was needed to thrive in this new world we are in, one of their number one recommendations was that by 2035, relational permanency, or the relationships that they have that are lifelong and enduring, would be the most important goal of extended foster care.

And that all of our efforts would shift from preparing youth for independence and instead create nurturing family ties and deep social connections that would allow them to have a life of healthy interdependence. That is really going to be the only way that youth can weather this new future.

That work to prioritize relationships, it actually can't start at 18 or 19 or 20 while our young people are in extended foster care.

It has to start the moment a child or youth comes to our attention, whether that child is a day old or 17 years old. As I said earlier, it's the hardest, but it's the absolute most important work that we can do as a child welfare system. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Do you have time for a few more questions?

Yes, I do.

Senator Menjivar. Okay. I do have the Executive summary in front of me. And congratulations. On the threshold of change is the report that you're celebrating today.

And I just want to encourage you, as you launch that today, to make that available not only to this Committee, but to our colleagues who are going to be making some tough decisions around the budget deficit this year.

So I worry about our young people, and I worry about the direction that we're headed, both as I see the rates of suicide increase, as I see the cost of housing and other basic needs here in California become more and more unattainable.

The simplicity around prioritizing relationships is such a fascinating theory. And yet we're in the social digital age, where relationships are artificial through artificial intelligence, through social media, through creating personas online.

And to use your word, we're in a state where we are in an unimaginable state of affairs. And so I always look at how are we doing with our children, how are our young people thriving?

And that is one of the areas where this committee has really taken a stronghold, is to ensure that the policy decisions that we're making are helping to serve the future of our young people in a way that is preventative but also intervene for what we see is coming down the pipeline.

So thank you so much for being a leader in that. One question I did have for you is, of all the things that you've learned of the report, and certainly what you've pointed out in the executive summary, what is the most important thing that you need from the Legislature to ensure that California family based systems are thriving at this time?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'll speak both from what we've learned from the report, but also what we've learned working in Fresno and Ventura County and other counties with the Quality Parenting Initiative.

And I think what I would say the most important thing for the Legislature to consider is any policy proposal or budget proposal that comes before you, thinking about how that proposal either strengthens or supports children and youth relationships, or if it interferes whether there's an alternate solution that can get you to the same goal.

As I said, people often want to know through our QPI work, like, what are the five magic things that a system can do? And I think that Sonia and David can both tell you it's actually every single thing that you do in your system. And so it's a lens that you have to have on.

And so if they're during this next cycle, and I think it's particularly important when systems are in crisis and when times get tough, it's easy to let go of your North Star and start reverting to crisis mode and kind of trying to keep the minimum regulations.

But it's actually the most important time that we have to really focus on, as you said, what matters most to young people which is who loves them at the end of the day?

It's not even who's there to care for them, but who loves them? Who are they going to be able to have at their high school graduation? They're in the delivery room when they have their first child, walk them down the aisle when they get married?

When our young person feels like the answer to that is, I don't know. As I said, the consequences are disastrous, and our systems are already under so much strain.

That's just an area that they don't know how to recover from. And then I would also say, really listen to the counties, the young people and the families that have been working on both identifying some of those barriers, developing solutions to those barriers, and then figure out how to resource and scale some of those solutions out.

I would say that much of our work in the Quality Parenting Initiative is not us coming in with solutions. In fact, I think none of it really is.

It's going into the county and listening to the people that are doing the work or who are living the consequences of that work and saying, what ideas do you have on how to fix this? And then beta testing it in the county.

And now counties have some very clear ideas around the things that actually work towards getting us to a family based system. And I'll say lots of them do, in fact, work. And I can give you a couple of examples.

Years ago, families and youth identified that extracurricular activities were actually one of the most important supports that were missing to help youth and families. It was sort of the school aged and adolescent equivalent of childcare for families.

And it gave young people a healthy outlet to deal with all of the trauma and loss that they had experienced, and particularly for those unstructured, like out of school, after school summertimes. But they're so expensive and so complicated for our families, particularly kin to resource.

So counties, and I know Fresno County has been one of the counties that have done that, who have figured out how to get private public partnerships and fund those kind of extracurricular activities.

They can tell you they work, but we have yet to see dedicated state dollars going to funding those. Yet another example, counties like Ventura County, resource training and supporting experienced peer mentors in their county who are deployed when there's a problem that is going on between a family and a youth.

Those peer mentors that the county, on their own, resourced and sort of built up, they were successful in stabilizing almost every single situation. And I think so successful that some of those peer mentors actually went into the business of matchmaking between young people who were in institutional care and families resource families in the community that might be able to care for them.

And I think a lot of the work with QPI has been figuring out how do we actually listen to families and all of the families and all of the youth, because we often get a panel or an advisory group or a couple of families.

But both Ventura and Fresno have been involved with us in something that we call Quality Parenting Outreach, where we've been utilizing texting to survey every single family in that county's child welfare system to say, what do you need? Are policies being implemented?

And at an aggregate level, that's helping leaders make decisions about where to put their time and resources. And at an individual level, that follow up back to families to say, I'll get you what you need, I think has been critical in helping families feel like actually counties are here for them.

And it's a really important thing when staff resources are limited and so many counties have vacancies and have been unable to really hire or get supervisors and managers who are experienced to sort of have the families telling you, here's what I need for you to be helping me.

Madam Chair, can I ask? Before you leave, if I may, and I would love to ask you this after, but your perspective on feedback, on family kinship, foster care placements and so forth, and the barriers that families are still experiencing, anything on that?

I think there are a number of barriers, and the majority of those barriers are practice barriers. But it is an easy concept to do family finding and to really work closely with kin. But it is hard in practice. I think most of the counties that have been successful have needed to utilize outside staffing to really build up their family finding and engagement efforts initially.

Some counties have brought back retired annuities, like other counties have actually used private contractors to do that very intensive, very detailed work with families. But then all the way along, these are families who didn't plan to spend their life caring for children.

And so they need every support under the sun. So they don't necessarily need things that are different than the array of services and supports that you hear all resource parents need.

But they need them more intensively and more immediately because they have not been on a journey of planning for this. They don't have their life situated. So there are definitely, when you look at sort of first rate of placement with kin across the state, you can see huge disparities in those numbers.

Some counties have the majority of children who are first placed with kin. Others have a very small number in terms, Madam Chair mentioned, the new reality we live in, where life is on social media.

Like many of particularly our grandparents who are caring for young people, they don't understand this and so they need a lot of support from the agency, from staff, and sort of navigating everything that is involved with parenting a child or a youth at this time where the world is so different.

So we have a long way to go on this, but we have the blueprint for actually how to do it and how to do it well.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Again, congratulations on your event today. We are going to be moving to our Zoom witness. Ms. Lauren Mendez is one of our lived experts who is coming from the Child and Family Policy Institute of California and is part of the Youth Engagement Project. So Lauren, I just want to make sure that you are online and ready.

Yes, I am.

Great. Well, welcome.

Thank you for having me. So, my name is Lauren Mendez and I'm a part of the Child and Family Policy Institute of California with the Youth Engagement Project. I've been a part of this organization for eight years and an advocate for children and youth in foster care for over 10 years.

I was in foster care from age 15 until I aged out at 21. I unfortunately was not able to be placed with family and Kincare while I was in foster care as a minor.

I spent majority of my time in foster care in congregate care. So group homes, three to be exact, and I was in five different foster homes. When I went into foster care, many family members and extended family members received a letter letting them know that I was in foster care with the hopes of someone coming forward to take placement of me.

Sending a letter to family members is a box checked by the county child welfare system.

Due to no follow up to my family members after receiving this letter, no one came forward to take placement of me. The letter sent out only created confusion and they did not understand why they were receiving this letter.

If my family members would have gotten a phone call from the county child welfare system explaining what was needed and what supports the county could offer them with this transition, I would have not been bounced around and a victim of the Child Welfare System.

I was able to move in with my grandparents after I turned 18. During my time in AB 12 Extended Foster Care while I awaited a transitional housing placement. The support I received from my grandparents was astronomical.

They helped me get my driver's license in a car so that I could get myself to and from school. My grandfather supported me in furthering my education by going to our local community college.

My mental health was thriving because I felt loved and supported where I was living at. Being able to stay with my grandparents, I felt closer to my family to who I was before I was put into foster care.

He took me to the campus to make sure I was prepared for my first day of classes. During the time I stayed with my grandparents, I was able to have family centered meals at dinner time, which I was not able to get being in group homes.

If I would have been able to be placed with family members, it would have preserved my mental health, in terms of trauma. Not being placed with family members allowed for more trauma.

Back to some of my previous statements I made about what would have made a difference in terms of being placed with family. County Child Welfare needs to make sure that they are reaching out to family members via phone or in person.

I was sexually exploited and trafficked in a group home, the feelings of being unwanted, unloved and just another paycheck for a business. If I would have been able to be placed with family members, I would have had the support needed to stay in my school of origin instead of going to five different high schools in three years.

If I would have been placed with family members, my relationships with my family would have been maintained, including my siblings.

If I would have been able to be placed with family members, I would have been able to preserve my family culture into traditions and not eat Thanksgiving dinner in the garage on the floor with totes as tables.

Because I was able to be placed with my grandparents at 18, I'm the person who I am today. I'm a wife, a mother of three children, and a bonus mom to two children.

If I would have been able to be placed with family members, the focus would have been on me and my individual needs and supports so that I could thrive in the most important time in my life.

And I would have not been where I am today without my grandparents and without being able to be placed with family members. Thank you.

Thank you, Lauren, for your extremely powerful story and for trusting us with your life journey to help educate us on what's going well and what we can do better. I want to open up to questions. Senator Menjivar.

No, I think that's so great. I appreciate your bravery also to come and share your story with us. I think it's a needed reminder for what can happen when we don't step in and take care of the children that are under our state's and county's care.

What is the follow up to that? But we all know workplace issues, I mean, workforce issues are strong in all our county. The follow up is difficult.

I think you pointed out something that I brought out regarding foster kinship and I wrote down and I don't know if this is the same case for every single county where the practice is to simply send a letter that could potentially be lost in the mail. I jotted down that.

The sustainability to care and follow each case throughout the trajectory of that child is really difficult for us to accomplish. I don't know outside of having a 200,000 hiring approach for all counties, how else we can implement some kind of touch points to ensure that a lot of our kids don't get lost here?

I don't know, Madam Chair, if I have any question or not. I think it was just information that I heard before, it's also just a reminder of what we need to do to help out as much as possible.

Thank you. And we're going to be hearing from two of our counties around what has been working and what has changed as well. Being that we have 58 counties here in California, I think we are going to see how different lived experiences are impacting our young people.

Both in stories of reunification and also stories that we could have done better to help connect this youth. One thing for me, I do represent Stanislaus County, which is the county, Lauren, that I see you come from.

I just, I want to make sure that as we're talking about what is working in our county's approach to the foster care system and to helping our youth is that we acknowledge that one size does not fit all and that we have very rural communities. We also have urban centers.

And with that comes an array of social indicators that impact the way that we make our decisions. Lauren, I just want to thank you again for being here and for sharing your story with am.

It is not lost in me that you're continuing to do the great work to impact other young people that are either in the system or have been impacted by a family member. So I want to thank you also for continuing to give back in that way. And I look forward to one day meeting you.

Okay, great. Okay, we're going to move on to Mr. David Swanson Hollinger, deputy director of Child and Family Services, Human service agency in Ventura County, and Ms. Sanja Bugay, is that correct?

Sanja Bugay, Director of Department of Social Services from Fresno County. Thank you for being here. And please begin when you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Senator Menjivar. And it's going to be tough to follow both of those speakers, but I'm going to try. I'm really here to build on what was introduced by both speakers about the value of family engagement, of developing a culture and a lens of kin.

And as Jennifer indicated, we are a proud QPI County, and that's one of the many pieces that has helped us to shift, and we are in the process of shifting our lens to a kin culture.

In Ventura, in our county, we've got about 700 children with open cases currently, and about 500 of those are in out of home care. The rest are living with their family of origin.

And we've seen, like many counties, a reduction, about a 30% reduction in overall caseload of children coming in in the past several years. And like many jurisdictions, as was talked about earlier, we do have challenges with disproportionality and disparities in our county.

It's a disproportionate number of Latino families coming in, primarily families with young children coming in from a certain geographic area in the Oxnard community in our county. And we're doing some targeted work to recognize those disparities, to reduce those trends.

And as I indicated, we in our county have embraced an overall culture that focuses on the value and the voices of those we served and inviting in those natural supports of parents, children and their youth. So for us, Kin culture is not just about placement.

And kin does not just mean relatives. It's those individuals that are important in the lives of children and families we serve, as we've heard earlier. And it's those people that will be there once we're gone out of these families lives.

Engagement of children, youth, parents, their natural supports, has been foundational to our practice, and we've done a broad array of training to help shift that lens and that practice model, bringing in national and international experts in this work over the last number of years.

And it has been a core part of our work around diversity, equity and inclusion. It puts power sharing with families at the center of our work, and it's about honoring and supporting that cultural resiliency and strength of families in the communities we serve, ensuring that they're helping to drive their case plans and solutions that work best for them. It also drives outcomes, as we've heard.

We know that we, and I'll talk a little bit about some specific data, but we know we see better child welfare outcomes. We also know there's a great body of research out there that shows that children who are with Kin are able to stay with Kin or with their parents have better life outcomes along that trajectory of life. There's also a link to prevention. As I said, it's not just about placement.

We found that if we can support families to build that network, the larger network of natural supports around families, we can often avoid having to separate children from their parents. And it's been a key part of our work to reduce the entries into our system.

Over the last several years, we talked a little bit about mandated reporting and community supporting. I'm also very involved in that as co-chair of the Prevention Early Intervention Committee of the Child Welfare Council.

So it's an area that's near and dear to my heart. Lived Expertise is also critical in bringing those individuals into services, as Jennifer talked about, but also planning and program development as we move new work forward, new initiatives forward, making sure that we have that lens of those that have experienced our system to help guide the work that we're doing.

And it can't be done in isolation within a child welfare system, as Director Johnson talked about, it's about leveraging those cross system opportunities with Assembly Bill 2083.

And the move towards an integrated child, youth and family wellness system, which we're trying to do in our county that really focuses on that full continuum of supports for children and families.

And of course, it's also about when we have to separate families, ensuring we're doing everything possible to place those children with kin. A quick snapshot.

We are a county that has done relatively well in kinship placement. We place more than half our children with Kin at the initial separation from their parents, and we've been trending in the 60, Low 60% overall for Kin placement.

We're proud of that and we're nowhere near where we want to be. We've also seen the impact on outcomes in reunification or adoption guardianship.

There's multiple permanency outcomes that we look at, but we find that children who are placed with kin tend to do 20% to 30% points better than children who are not placed with kin in their permanency outcomes.

So it just underscores how critical that is. We also see much higher placement stability and levels of placement with all siblings in the same home when we're able to place with kin. I know our county is not unique in those numbers.

Some of the specific strategies we've taken on in our county to support Kin culture and Kin placement. We've adapted some of the learnings and some of the great work that's happened in LA County to do what they call upfront family finding and engagement.

And put some specific protocols and procedures in place. So it's more than just sending a letter, it's intentional engagement. At the very beginning of our work with families to support them.

And we've had staff that have historically worked in supporting parent child visitation, as well as identifying out of home placements to take on that work as part of their regular duties. They're already in there working with families.

We're also going to be building on those strategies through the creation of a dedicated front end family finding unit, and we'll be using the excellence in family finding, engagement and support program funds. These, of course, are like a number of funding streams out there.

These are time limited and right now they'll be ending at the end of June in 2027. So we're hoping these will become an ongoing funding stream to be able to support that work. We've also partnered with the Dave Thomas Foundation's Wendy's Wonderful Kids program.

And they're part of a dedicated unit of social workers that we have called the Family Search and Engagement Unit, and they work to find both legal and relational permanency for young people that are not able to return home.

I also want them to have a place to come back to when they're struggling. Also developing some specific strategies in that area with Casey family programs. And then lastly, I want to tap and talk a bit about those children and youth with the most challenging needs.

And this absolutely is continuing through our work with young adults into extended foster care. That relational permanency piece is so critical. I have a teenager and two children, and I want them to be independent.

I also want them to have a place to come back to when they're struggling. Also developing some specific strategies in that area with Casey family programs. And then lastly, I want to tap and talk a bit about those children and youth with the most challenging needs.

Even though we've had some great successes with kin placement and shift in our culture, and we've significantly reduced our use of concrete care, we also are challenged with.

Meeting the needs of those that have had significant trauma in their lives, as many counties have, and quite well for jurisdictions across the country.

This is a relatively small population of young people, but the needs are acute and very expensive and definitely require all system partners at both state and local levels to develop solutions. Support to kin caregivers has been a critical part of our overall continuum.

Very often it's those kin caregivers that are most willing to work with and support and support the well-being, as Lauren talked about, of those youth that have challenges if we put the supports in place to support those caregivers.

And as part of that larger continuum, short term residential therapeutic programs, intensive services, foster care, the innovative models of care wraparound, those other supports that we have available and need to be able to wrap around children and families, especially when children are in and out of home care, that they're able to be local if at all possible, those extended connections can be maintained.

It has been a program that's been very valuable to us in our county, supporting all placements, children in placement, including kin caregivers, as well as to support families once children have returned home.

A couple of other programs that we have tapped and leveraged within our county to support this work. There was some discussion about the family urgent response system.

And I think what struck me, I've heard a number of stories about this. But what struck me about the impact of the proposed cuts was when I learned of a young person, a teenager in our system, who saw it on the news that it was proposed for cut, called up her social worker and was distraught.

She talked with her worker about how often the first program has supported her to work through the challenges that she's faced and helped give her some stability in her situation.

The Flexible Family Support Funds have also helped and allowed us to promote creativity and ensuring support for children and youth in placement, particularly with kin. We're using these to support caregivers with things like moving expenses, household needs, respite care in connection to natural supports.

This is though, unfortunately, another one-time funding opportunity that will end at the end of fiscal year 25-26. And so we're not sure what we're worried about the ongoing impacts.

We're definitely watching the rates proposal that was discussed earlier to see what the impact that will have on this. And the child-specific complex care funds that were referenced have also been beneficial to us in our county supporting kin placements as well as other placements of young people.

We are a county that has been fully expending these funds.

And once spent, we're reverting back to local dollars, which, of course, in the current overall state and local budget situation becomes more challenging as we enter this budget period. And the process can sometimes be difficult for social workers to gain approval for that program.

And with that, as you indicated, we're one of 58 counties. These are some of the things that have worked for us. We are always wanting to learn from other counties.

And we know and recognize, even within a county, it's important to be adapting and tailoring the work to different neighborhoods and communities. But I'm hoping this has been helpful to at least give a snapshot of some of the work we've done. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. We'll continue with the next presentation and then pause for questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members. Sanja Bugay, Fresno County Department of Social Services Director. So I want to say ditto to a number of things that were said in the hearing earlier and give you a little bit of context for Fresno County and some of the things that have worked for us.

That gives you a little bit of a different program lens. So Fresno County is 10th largest county in the state. We're in Central Valley, but we have fifth largest child welfare population. So that's significant.

We have twice the poverty rate of the state. And when it comes to number of adults in poverty, it's about 20%. But when we look at our population 18 and under, it's about 30% of our kids that live below federal poverty line.

So while poverty and child abuse and neglect are two separate concepts, certainly poverty impacts our families when it comes to be able to support their kin. When it comes to be able to support and address the needs in our system.

So when it comes to kin-first culture, really paying attention to poverty and the needs of the families is really significant. So I want to talk to you about both prevention and kin placement from an emergency response perspective.

When it comes to prevention and kids and families touching our system, we really need to start with an emergency response. And when I compare our data from 2021 to 2023, we've dropped, in those two years, 30% reduction in entries into care.

And really, what the difference that it made. There are kind of three things in my mind to stick out, and one is we reduced the number of referrals per social worker. In 2021, our social workers had 25 to 30 referrals, which means a social worker out there investigating 30 families, trying to close that in 30 days, it's not possible.

It's just not possible to do good social work with those kind of numbers. Today, those numbers are 13 to 15.

I feel like we've been clawing our way back from COVID in trying to hire. But during the two COVID years, our turnover doubled.

Enrollment in Fresno State, our local university that supports not just Fresno County, but a number of other counties when it comes to graduates from both MSWs and social workers, their enrollment dropped by 30%.

So part of it was availability of funding, part of it was just sheer availability of staff, and we're still trying to hire our way back.

I think it's finally this year that we're getting back to those pre-COVID stability numbers. So it takes time and it also takes resources. So part of what made difference to us in emergency response is leveraging, ER, enhancement funds.

Those are time-limited, so I want to encourage you to support that. But part of it is being able to tell a social worker, yes, you're going to investigate and file court reports, but you're also an emergency placement worker.

And we really value the first placement being with family. We more than doubled the number of kids going as a first placement with the family in the past two years.

Our overall number of kids with families didn't necessarily change significantly, but doubling that initial placement, being with family, required that emergency worker to sit down with the family.

And it isn't just about finding them. That part isn't as hard. It's really addressing the immediate needs of the family for that placement to happen and doing it quickly.

So referral to somewhere else for those things to be taken care of happens. Right, but that takes time for that initial placement to be with the family.

We need to be on the spot. Being able to pivot and address some of the basic needs and that really, depending on the family, can vary from basic things like cribs and alarms and those kind of tangible things to really some very significant things for families to be willing to address, but really not being able to capable of doing it in the moment. And for us to say, yes, but we can.

That flexible family supports and, ER, emergency funding and giving really permission to staff to say, what does it take for us to really be able to in the moment do that kind of a change?

When I look at entries into care dropping by 30%, our social workers' workload per worker dropping by nearly 40% to 50%. And doubling the placement with kids, those are on the ground to families and to the workers. That's what really made the difference.

The time, having an ability to take the time to actually address the needs and to do it quickly. So family doesn't need to go through multiple steps, multiple referrals in the follow-up.

The other piece in emergency response that I really want to address, the prevention piece isn't really just about the funding and child welfare, it's the supports across the board.

So some of our kids and families ended up really growing the proportion that are going to family maintenance or voluntary family maintenance as opposed to entering the system and having out-of-home care.

Even if it's out of home with kin, was providing that immediate support to the actual parents. And a lot of that, quite frankly, is housing.

So while we can address, earlier you asked about domestic violence and what makes a difference and how do we address some of those issues?

I actually accompanied a social worker a year or so ago, just wanting to see on the ground what it looks like for families. And it happens to be a domestic violence referral. And part of it is mom was hurt, so was one of the kids.

We're talking three kids, but from the parents' perspective that the issue is domestic violence, but it also is poverty. Because what mom is saying is, hey, I sell my blood and plasma to occasionally support the family.

The mom wasn't working, but the dad is the breadwinner. And to ask that family to separate without considering housing isn't easy.

Having programs on bringing families home, connecting that mom to supports on our Marjaree Mason Center, but also really tangibly walking her through how to access CalWORKs, how to access our family stabilization, makes a huge difference of that family staying together in the moment. Long term the family would reunify.

But staying and not disrupting those kids and mom relationship in those kind of environments. Programs that are time-limited honestly give us permission to step back and do things differently. But long term of these programs really ensures that those efforts aren't one time. It ensures that those efforts are sustainable.

So I want to share with you a couple of other programs. We are a QPI county as well. I'm glad somebody else explained what it really means, but what it did for our county.

We were QPI county a long time ago and as supports kind of, and I think COVID disrupted a whole lot of things that in the past two years, we really reinvested a lot of efforts into stepping back, funding our champions really talking about kin-first culture, but also saying what are the tangible things?

Our work group is actually co-chaired by a foster parent, but has workers, and we're engaging youth to be on that work group, to really step back and say what would make a difference for us to be successful, not just in that initial placement, but throughout the life of a kid, whether they're in foster care and once they go back home.

And there are some tangible things, part of it is the approach, but part of it is some tangible supports. And one for us that the group is working on is transitions.

If a kid is going to transition back home or between placement, what does it take when it comes to health supports, support to a foster parent.

How do we ensure enough worker support, enough support of the kin so they can walk through the system, which is, quite frankly, really complicated for any of us to manage.

It takes social workers, but it takes a whole lot of other people to support a kid in our system.

That is the kind of support our families should count on once the kid goes back home. The other program for Fresno County that really has made a huge difference is intensive services foster care.

And while we have intensive services foster care through our foster family agencies, we're also a county that has county-operated Intensive Service Foster Care homes.

And when I look at the number of our kids that are in group homes or in short-term residential treatment programs, we have reduced by about 27% in the past couple of years. But, it's only about 13% of our kids that are in Intensive Service Foster Care.

So in the grand scheme of things, not a large percentage of kids, and yet these are kids that need the most support.

So what Intensive Service Foster Care does for them is really we step back and look at in that moment for that child and for that kin or a resource parent, what does it take for a kid to stay and not just be okay, but thrive?

And when those intensive supports are available for a prolonged period of time, the kids do thrive. We do see better reunification rates. We do see better school outcomes. We do see better health outcomes.

And that can't be a time-limited thing or a fixed thing. It really varies from a kid to kid. So what I really kind of want to leave you with is some of these one-time legislative investments and programs are huge opportunities for us. And we take them, they matter.

Long-term sustainability is incredibly important because it really allows us to think of these things not as a one-time opportunity, but this is how our systems need to operate long-term. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions?

You said you were part of that coalition, but can you dive a little bit more? Some of the themes that are coming out of that.

Yes, thank you so much, David, for bringing up FURS. And I was going to be one of the questions, like the need in the counties, if you're seeing it being utilized. So thank you for mentioning that. Can you briefly talk a little bit more about the failure to protect.

Yeah, this is the task force that Director Johnson talked about. That's the mandate reporting, the community supporting task force. And it's looking at a number of different elements of the overall mandated reporting system that we've historically had.

And so it's looking at the legal definition of neglect, and there have been some really important changes that have happened with AB and SB 2085 and I believe 1085 around detaching poverty and neglect.

But looking at whether there's other aspects of that definition that the task force might want to make recommendations on around the legal definition and domestic violence I know was brought up is one of those areas that's being looked at within that committee.

It's also looking at training and the role of training and what training should look like for mandated reporters.

It's also looking at the liability as we shift to a lens of identifying different ways to support all of those families that are currently referred to the child welfare system, that often are not opened up as a case and unfounded, making sure we have a pathway towards what we're calling a community pathway, other kinds of supports, but also addressing the fact that so many of those systems that have mandated reporters have those risk management folks that have certain requirements and expectations around that.

So looking at some of the laws around liability data is critical to that. And then other policy and practice considerations are embedded within that larger goal. So there's essentially five different arms to the work.

The intent is for the task force to bring forward a set of recommendations to the June Child Welfare Council meeting. We expect that this will be an ongoing process. This is very significant reform that we're looking at, and it's something that's being talked about nationally.

So we don't expect the work to be done then, but they're doing some great work and excited to see we've got a diverse group of folks from broad array of systems, a number of individuals with lived expertise that are part of this group.

Yeah.

Thank you.

For both of you, you shared different programs that worked in your different counties. You just spoke about the Intensive Service Foster Care. Can you share some of the most common needs that a lot of our families need when they get a foster kid placed.

Go for it.

I'll focus on kin care, as it was indicated. This is not something people are expecting to do often. And so it's first understanding what the obligation is, what the understanding what the system is.

The child welfare system is confusing for us that have worked in it for 30-something years. And so for families, it's often understanding what they're getting into and educating them. It depends on the child or youth that's coming in as to what those specific needs are.

But it's helping to make sure that the services and supports, whether it's behavioral health, whether it's access to education and the educational supports that are needed, whether it's healthcare-related, whether those are in place.

Sometimes it's tangible. It might be that we've had kin caregivers that have had to move into a larger place to be able to support that young person. And so it's helping them with tangible things like deposit on a new apartment or those kinds of things.

So I think it really runs the gamut of basic needs, of services, of helping to support. The connection is critical to those other people that are important in their lives, the parents and others. So I'll stop there.

So I'm going to add, it really depends on the age of a kiddo and the time in the case. So upfront for emergency placement and for my resource family. So family can accept placement immediately without meeting all of the guidelines.

Eventually, a family needs to go through the resource family approval. That process is intensive and there's some really kind of tangible things, alarms, cribs, things that we don't really think about that resource family approval will have to kind of check the box.

For medications, the cabinets, the actual tangible things that family needs that they did not anticipate spending money on. That our ability to fund it is huge. Some of the other supports really, as we're walking through the systems, we improved our RFA approval in the past couple of years by like 60% the length of time.

And some of that was really things like our social workers and support staff being available in the evenings and on the weekends for live scan, for walking family. Not just saying, well, that eight-hour preapproval training is available online, actually walking them through it.

Especially if it's skin and especially if we have different language needs.

Being able to sit down with a family going like this is the piece to go through, this is the paper, because we're trying to connect with the families or why is it taking as long as it does? That individual social worker intention with the actual tangible supports is to me, what made the most difference. So that's kind of the upfront needs.

Once the family is there on an ongoing basis, the ongoing support, especially for our kids that are multisystem involved, helping them understand well, this is what education is bringing through.

These are the appointments through mental health and what it really means helping the social worker kind of guide the family through it. Because it's just hard to understand from both educational system, mental health system, our DDS involved kiddos, when there's a developmental delays.

We all have our own alphabet soup, we all have our own reports and helping family navigate that. And to me that's again, social worker time. And when we looked at when the placement disruption happens and we're getting 14-day notices and what supports the families need for that not to be a reality, it ends up being things like respite care.

I don't want to quit on this kid, but there are some challenges and I need a break and I need additional support. Respite has been a huge support to our resource families to say I need somebody else to walk with me to help me understand and to give me a break.

And when I think of it being a mom, I'm like, we all need that. So it's not really anything different from families. Our ability to fund it and be there timely is really, I think the difference it makes.

And my final question related to that. There's been a lot of our predecessors before our time passed legislation to remove the barriers to make it easier for those families who actually know they want to take in their kin. Right.

We talked a lot about those that didn't know this was going to land on their lap, but those who are actively looking to take in their loved ones about not having poverty be impacted against them.

Anecdotally, I'm still hearing that if a family lives in a one bedroom, they can't take on their kid. And for me that looks like we're still utilizing poverty as an issue to prevent kids going into their family ones. I mean, I'd rather live on the sofa of my aunt than in the desk of a social worker because there's no placement.

Talk to me a little bit more about other barriers that we can remove or that still exist that prevent us from placing these kids with their families.

I think you articulated that very well. It definitely has got is far better than it was. And I know there's also discussions because there has been recent federal law that allows states to look at approval for relative caregivers differently.

Which the state is engaging counties in discussion on now to look at whether they're training requirements and clearance requirements and those kinds of things.

It definitely has gotten easier in terms of clearances and some of the law, but I know a law that helped to address that. And the supports, especially with ongoing funding, oftentimes, it's not that we can't place, but it's that if a kin caregiver wants to have a larger setting for that child because it's a better place to raise that child if they think it's going to be for a longer term.

And so that's where some of these supports that right now are one time have been beneficial in that way. Trying to think what else.

I think I heard something like, if someone has a pool, it's a barrier to get placed there.

Living in a one bedroom apartment for a short period of time when you thought this is going to be six months, that looks different at 12 months or 13 months. So what do we really meaningfully need on an ongoing basis?

So we will now, through Flexible Family Supports, fund that. You can have a fence, you can have alarms. Those are kind of one time needs that. Depending on the family, depending on the assessment, really addressing that.

Not asking families to go jump through a whole bunch of community resources in order to figure out that on their own. Some of it is guiding them through it, part of it is when you're in that situation, trying to address it and address it quickly.

And then it disappeared for a while and we really saw a decline in many counties. Just inability to pay for that. So flexible family supports, bringing that back, which is why you were hearing us both echo of like, don't make that one time.

So we are not delaying that initial placement. I think we're significantly better at that across the board, and yet those are real costs. So years ago we had fippers and I couldn't tell you what that stands for now.

That just needs to be the norm. The other piece for our families is really that ongoing support for them not to feel like we're pulling out. Okay. Things are okay.

If a kid's going to stay in school and it's an ongoing transportation, what does that look like? Sometimes it's reimbursement for gas, sometimes an actual team coming up and saying, like, who is going to do that transportation?

Because the jobs, it's whatever an average family needs. We need to say those kind of supports need to be there on an ongoing basis for us not to look at it as a one time need. I do think our programs are good when we design them.

Not looking at a long term sustainability is, I do think where our challenges begin.

Potentially it's great that the programs exist for perhaps funding that fence. But if a parent doesn't get a test to bring their newborn home, if they have a poor or not, I just feel like this is an added barrier that could prolong the process where in fact we could just remove.

You have a pool. You have a pool. I feel like there's still some that we're finding ways to address a barrier versus removing the barrier.

It's really how we look at safety and depending on it's really working with our emergency.

Do that for all families.

I do think that when we look at prevention, if we can do prevention before families and kids touch our system, I'm all for it.

Yes, and some of it is that conversation about liability and safety. But how do we look at safety and how do we address immediate needs of safety for our kids? And we do look at it differently, right when the kid is removed and it's a placement versus supporting the family up front and infusing support so kids stays at home.

But that worker seeing themselves as also, how do I keep you at home? How do I address any safety needs? So you're not entering our system. That's really where our efforts should be, and that really takes staff time.

But the reality is reimagining our emergency response for that. Yes, we're investigating a call and abuse and neglect, and yes, we have to do the paperwork for court and timeliness because we're in families lives.

Supporting resource families, training and recruiting them for multiple sibling care, for transitioning youth, for English as a second language youth, native children, as well as children of migrant farm worker families.

That really looks at staff being trained enough and supported enough to look at safety differently. And that means connecting our families up front with any possible support we can because they're much better off than entering our system.

And that's not anything against our systems. But we do look at liability and safety differently when a kid is out of home care versus staying at home.

Thank you. I do want to continue on the theme of resource families because I think that that is part of the equation of success for out of placement as well. I wanted to hear a little bit about what your concerns and some of the best practices that you found in your experience.

So some of these subsets that we see throughout California that have unique cultural needs, language needs, and just interpretations of what success looks like within that family. So some concerns or some best practices.

And I think what it starts with is the lens within which we are working with those families and recognizing that often our system comes in with a different lens than the families we work with. And so what has worked with us is this is where I really believe that kin culture and engaging those supports around, but also those community entities that may be more are connected with the communities we're working with.

In our county, we have a number of families that come into our system, for example, that are migrant farm worker families and indigenous families from Mexico. And we've strengthened our work by partnering with those agencies that are trusted, and that goes with working with kin caregivers or especially non related caregivers that may not understand those families.

And so it's education, but it's also helping to demystify and to bring in potentially other resources and understand the way it kind of goes to safety, but also understand what well being and safety and culture looks like for that child as well as for those parents wanting to maintain that connection. That has really worked well for us.

It's been a shift, because I think that's where that shift of the lens has been with child welfare, where when I started it was we do things kind of a one size fits all. And we've realized that we really have to look at those communities and realize that there's strengths and supports within each community neighborhood often that we work in, that we can help to partner with.

It's a process as well because of the impact of disproportionality and disparities historically in those communities to build that trust. But I think it's coming in and engaging those communities and those families differently also. It's going in, and this is a core tenet of coparenting, but also some of the other changes that have happened in practice of recognizing that we as a system don't have all the answers going in. And so it's understanding that families often are going to know what will work best for them.

And it may be within certain parameters to ensure the safety and the regulations that we work with, but it's sharing that power of how to identify the solutions that work with families. So there's a few examples of where it's worked.

So I actually asked my resource family approval staff, I'm like, what makes the most difference? And there's some really kind of tangible things that their flexible family supports. So their list started with things like really smoke detectors, air mattresses, scripts, beds, gas reimbursement.

We really struggle with resource family approval backlog and some of that was sufficient staff time, really sufficient staff time that when staff decreases, we go into a crisis mode and coming out of COVID reinfusing our resources into resource family approval and trying to double our kin first placement, but also resource family approval across the board, handholding families through the process.

My staff gave me an example of buying iPads, but really in our communities like Kalinga and Huron, that are 70 miles from Fresno and really, really small, when we don't have an office social worker going out there and helping walk them through the paperwork and the process and the training made a huge difference to families.

Our systems need to be designed in such a way, given 58 counties, given how large we are, that there is a general system of how it works, and then flexibility to really pivot based on a community pivot based on the family to say this is what we can provide, that's where that is.

Really huge things. Simple things like having staff available after 05:00 p.m. and on Saturdays for things like resource family approval when it comes to live scans, because families work eight to five and we are used to emergency response being available, but only emergency response 24/7, the rest of our systems are not. And making that change made a significant impact in our families.

Being able to comply and not that online resources aren't available, but that assumes that our kid knows how to do that, knows exactly where to click, where to go through pick what's the most important that individual guidance by a social worker going like, you can call me, you don't have to worry about your child social worker. You call me, I'm going to walk you through the paperwork, I'm going to step you through this and explain what it really means.

Really made a difference to us that in a two year, our backlog went down by 64% and that was happening at the same time we were doubling the number of about resource families that are actual can.

Another element I wanted to mention and Jennifer talked about this is, and you referenced the fibers, and I can't remember what fippers stands for either, but those were dollars that preceded the flexible family supports and the peer mentors, the former caregivers or current caregivers in some cases that support our other caregivers were something that we were able to fund with those fibers dollars. And that program is a little bit smaller now.

Now that money was not ongoing, but was another example of having individuals that have been through that same experience. Supporting caregivers has been really helpful as well.

Okay, so I guess what I'm not hearing is coming from a child's perspective. If a child has been raised within a certain culture, language, religion, how are we ensuring that the out of home placement for that child mirrors what that child's safety community is? How are we ensuring that those resource families that take in, for example, a Trans child or take in a child from the sikh community has that continuum of care and understanding of what is safe for that child?

I understand kind of the tangible supports, but our children are dealing with some very important identity issues. And when they're removed from their home and putting in an out of home placement, how are the counties ensuring that those kids are taken care of and that our resource parents feel competent in working with a child?

We in Fresno actually have a program called cultural brokers, and we've kind of doubled up our investment during this past year in the program. And some of it is really having individuals who are familiar with the community go out even as early as our emergency response to help us understand how we engage with the community, how we even define what safety is.

And then if the kid is going to enter our system, having a cultural broker and a parent partner kind of walk through and say this is what's needed, this is what really they're saying. What they're saying that really helping us almost translate how we say our government needs versus the child in the community. I think cultural brokers program is really one that has made the most difference with some of our successes.

I do think that this is the area where we need to grow and expanding on that model across the board and really hearing the family and ensuring the experience. Some of it is trainings that are available for both our staff and for a resource family and hearing our kids and what the tangible supports look like to them so they're not missing the things they're used to simply because there is a disruption in their home environment.

Thank you. That's the first time I heard about those cultural brokers. I'm thinking of like the Bromotoras program when it comes to health access. So is this something that's unique to County of Fresno, something that you've.

So I'm proud to say a decade or so ago, County of Fresno started it and then I saw a presentation in Sacramento County by our program and I'm like, hey, that expanded that it exists in a number of counties. It is a kind of county funded practice and expanded and really what it meant a decade ago versus today, over time, really needs to change.

Part of it is both how we investigate, how we talk to families, our culture, brokers said in our child and family team meetings of helping and go through, they really go through with our social workers through a safety organized practice training and division 31 training. So they are understanding the system, the child welfare system and the courts, helping families understand that, so they understand why we ask, what we ask. So we're not being intentionally intrusive. We really just need to know.

And also helping our social workers understand the culture and the language and customs that we may not fully understand. What does that mean? What's missing? And then helping not lose a kid in this perspective. So I do think there's growth in that program. It's needed across the board.

But we've, in Fresno, realized that even though we've had a program for a long time during COVID and during past years and funding changes are dissipated, that we've, I think, more than doubled our investment that you're in growing it.

Thank you. I'm happy to hear that because I feel like when we look at the history of how children have been removed from their ancestral homes with the intent of breaking them from what is their culture, their language, their self identity, I'd like to believe and trust and hope that moving forward, that we can honor that integrity of identity in our children and families and make that part of the integral process of healing and family reunification and community support.

So I'll be asking more of that of our counties to get some more information on those cultural brokers. I think programs that are funded from the state, like the Casa Program, that kind of helps to follow the child is another way for us to ensure that that child has an advocate, has somebody from their community that sees through the lens of that child.

And I know that with government systems, sometimes we are pushing forward with the resources that we have in front of us, trying to make sure that we're within the law, the decisions we make, and that is lost in the framework and the lens of a child. So we want to make sure that we are leading with that lens first. So thank you so much for being here. Any follow up questions? Senator Menjivar? Okay, great. Thank you so much for being here.

We're going to move to the Zoom again. We have Sophia Jeffe, who was one of our lived experts, who is here joining us today. I apologize for the delay. Sophia, I'm excited about your presentation, highlighting access to higher education when it comes to our foster youth. So please begin when you are ready.

Hi. Thank you so much for allowing me to testify. Like I said, my name is Sophia, and I am a youth ambassador for the Child Family Policy Institute of California. Additionally, I am the foster youth services coordinator for UC Santa Barbara and have been an advocate for child welfare reform since my entry into the system in 2014.

Share a little bit about my journey, my time in foster care was characterized by congregate and shelter care where I found myself living among 40 to 50 other foster youth lacking the familial connections and resources that could have provided the stability that I needed during my formative years. Given my age, health profile, and a general lack of compatible resource families available in my county, I spent 18 months living in an emergency children's shelter intended for 30 days or less.

Living in congregate care meant facing instability and disconnection from my former life on a daily basis. While the staff were well intentioned, they often struggled to meet our individual needs amidst high turnover and chronic understaffing. I regularly missed school medical appointments, childhood family team meetings, court appointments, and more due to insufficient vehicles or staff to attend to every use needs that day. Similarly, my high school experience lacked normal enrichment and socialization.

Participation in school activities such as football games, school dances, tutoring sessions, club meetings, and more required explicit permission from my social worker, which was often difficult to obtain. Access to the internet and technology for completing basic homework assignments was severely limited. I had no control over my diet, meal times, or access to food.

While seemingly minor individually, these experiences were abnormal for a high school student and significantly impacted my ability to adapt after being removed from my home. As a type one diabetic in a heavily institutionalized environment, I was shocked by the lack of staff training in managing daily healthcare needs. After several medical mishaps in my residential cottage, it was decided by the campus doctor that I would receive daily medical care at the center, which further diminished my sense of autonomy and normalcy.

Health management was just one aspect of my life impacted by the absence of kin. Being placed in foster care just before starting high school, I lacked the resources and guidance needed to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. A stable household with a supportive family member would have been invaluable to me during this time. As my familial network dwindled over the years, so did my parents support system. The absence of a large support network hindered my parents' ability to care for me and limited my potential kinship options.

Despite having a few biological relatives in various California locations, they were deemed unsuitable due to DCFS's hesitancy to relocate me from my school of origin, which ultimately occurred regardless during my time in care. This was especially disheartening as nobody asked me how I felt about my kinship placements. Despite my young age, I believe that my voice should have been at the forefront of placement discussions.

I think that factors such as streamlining the approval and licensing process, providing legal training and support on kinship rights, and offering financial assistance are key components that could have expanded my kinship placement options. Additionally, recognizing nonbiological kin and family supports as viable options in the early identification of kinship caregivers could have brought forth many more suitable placement options and ultimately spared me the experience of being in an institutional environment for the majority of high school.

As I reflect on my experience and working in higher education and admissions now, I see a lot how education and distal pipeline to college begins so early. Oftentimes your trajectory in middle school and elementary school is indicative of the kinds of stability you're going to have educationally in high school. And I believe that my environment in congregate care really served as an impediment to me trying to obtain a degree and work through those higher education challenges as a former foster youth. Thank you.

Thank you. Sophia, may I ask where in California is considered home for you?

I live in Santa Barbara now, but I was placed in care in Ventura County but have slipped all over.

Yes, I can imagine. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and for continuing to give back in the work that you do. We're going to open up to questions and then I'll invite our next speaker up, Senator Menjivar. Ok. All right. So, Sophia, I just wanted to check in with you before we say goodbye again. Thank you for being with us via Zoom.

You had mentioned several factors in what could have worked better for you and that you were not included or asked in terms of what would have worked better for you. Do you think that there is a middle ground where we have adults that kind of make decisions for our youth, but also an opportunity for our youth to have a voice in how those decisions affect them? And what would that look like?

Yeah, definitely. I do think oftentimes in care, or at least for myself and my family dynamic, there were probably some things that didn't. Some, I guess family factors, just socioeconomic factors, lifestyle choices, things like that. That one I may not have been privy to as a 1314 year old being placed in care, but I do think that there could have been. I think in General there can be more of an ongoing discussion just about what those kinship placements would look like.

I know for myself a big factor in my removal from my home was it was a neglect case and a lot of that was heavily tied to poverty and that was something that was not limited to just my mother. It also impacted her family as well. And I don't know if resources that would be provided by the state would be even viable enough to accommodate those kind of gaps and holes.

So I do think that, yeah, I agree that an adult should be at the forefront of those discussions or should be ultimately delegated to kind of streamline those conversations. But I do think that just as a youth, I think I had a lot of information about my family context that other people didn't.

I think that there were just a lot of factors, even as someone who was reunified, and I'm incredibly grateful to have been reunified with my biological family, I think that as a youth at the time, there were things that I wanted to withhold so that I could expedite the process of getting home. And in my adult years, I'm definitely regretful of that, just like kind of sweeping issues under the rug and things like that. So I definitely think.

Sorry if I'm deviating from the question, but I definitely think that it's not just the youth voice that's important, because my priorities were probably a little skewed at the time, not always focused on my well being and just kind of escaping that environment that I didn't enjoy.

Great. Thank you for that honesty. The other aspect of what we've done here at the Legislature is we've put a lot of energy, a lot of resources towards ensuring that our foster youth is successful in order to access higher education, whether it's through grants, scholarships, or that transitional bridge support. How has that experience for you played out? And now that you are in higher education and looking at counseling and admissions.

Where could we do more? And what have you seen that has improved?

Yeah, I am glad that you asked that. So as a former foster youth who exited care just about two months before, or I began the family reunification process about two months before I turned 15, and my case was closed about a week before my 16th birthday.

I didn't receive a lot of some of the benefits that are associated with prostitutes in higher education, such as like the Chafee grant, but one financial resource that was incredibly helpful, mean just financial aid as a whole, being able to report myself as an independent, because that also was kind of my reality.

As I moved out of my actual home at 16 and a half and moved into my friend's house for the remainder of high school. I was able to receive benefits like my own health insurance. I was able to get strong benefits in terms of CalFresh, things like that. And my financial aid package looked really good once I got into the UC system. But my path was a little wonky because I attended a university my freshman year, thought I wanted to be a nurse.

Then I went to community college, and that year that I was in community college, it was incredibly hard because the cost of attendance for financial aid packages in general, it doesn't include factors such as housing when you're in community college. And so there were definitely times where I really struggled to make ends meet. But there have been a lot of legislative changes to the budget since 2022 that have been amazing for our foster youth services program.

One thing that has made a huge impact for our students is the revision to the self help contribution. So prior to this year, there was an expectation that foster youth would contribute, I believe it was $7000 or $8,000 annually to their tuition, which I can say I had no means to do as a foster youth going through college. And so it definitely impacts your award that you get for financial aid and just being able to kind of navigate through all of those costs.

I am really grateful to see programs funded like basic needs and guardian scholars programs. Everyone kind of has a different name for it. But we have been really fortunate with state funding to be able to help mitigate some of those in between costs, like childcare, wisdom teeth removal, things that just kind of come up in between.

But I do wish that we were able to do a little bit more for some of our students that don't fall into some of the age requirements or maybe had less formal introductions or know the system, things like that.

Thank you again, Sophia, and thank you for being here. We are going to move on to the remainder of our panel. We are exploring prevention and looking forward. We have four more speakers. I'd like to invite Anna Gennari, Director of Strategy and Operations from California Youth Connection, to come forward. Leticia Gallion, Chief Executive Officer from Seneca Family Agencies, Leslie, Executive Director of Children's Law Center of California, and Cindy Kane, parent support coordinator from Children's Law Center. And we are going to begin with Ms. Gennari.

I do want to make sure that those of you are here to provide public comment. We will begin public comment promptly at 1245. So thank you for being here. And we will begin with Ms. Gennari, when you're ready.

Yes. Excuse me. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Anna Gennari. I am the director of strategy and operations with California Youth Connection. And first, I want to thank you all. Thank you to the Senators and the amazing panelists before, and I know some coming after me, it is definitely an honor to be here. I also want to say that I am really here representing hundreds of CYC members across the State of California, from La to Humboldt to Central Valley Bay Area.

In between, we are strong and represented across the state, and I also stand with my own legacy and experience as someone with lived experience who aged out of the juvenile justice system and was given a shot at 18 to be a part of a youth led movement which has really, truly set the foundation and my ability to sit here and speak on the panel today.

For over 30 years, California Youth Connection has been the largest foster youth led organization in the country and continues to be a leader of grassroots and statewide systems change, led by people with lived experience that know directly the impact of these policies. We've also worked really closely with the Senate Human Services Committee on a number of key changes that we're super grateful for.

So over time, we have worked to create the first foster youth bill of Rights, maintaining sibling connections within the system, increasing placement stability in 2018, and recognizing the importance of the reduction of congregate care through CCR and other related conversations.

In recent years, CYC's feel the heel, which you may have heard of, and our systems accountability for all campaigns have amplified the continued need for all young people to have access to lifelong connections, safe and affirming places to call home, access to housing, education and quality holistic health care as basic human rights.

As experts here, we all know right, the research shows clearly that young people's development is dependent on these pillars, not extra or outside of, but is truly dependent upon all of which we're fighting for. We know these as protective and promoted factors for young people not only to survive, but to thrive. However, when young people are removed from their home, as was said earlier, they're removed from their culture, their community.

These connections are disrupted, and a system well intended and responsible to care for young people can oftentimes create barriers to these very things that actually protect and develop them. So this is why hundreds of young people at CYC have been working over the last few years alongside great organizations like the Youth Law Center, who you heard from before, on a visionary future forward approach to transforming extended foster care.

And so I'm sure this was talked about, but really elevating, moving beyond traditional services to more of a guaranteed basic services and income, cooperative housing that supports community communities and families staying and supporting together, and networks of mutual aid of care and connection, things that we all need and deserve. And as a part of our statewide work, CYC members have also been rallying around increasing access to enrichment activities, something that was just shared before, right? Access to football games, dances.

These activities that all young people should have access to and are, again, not extra, but fundamental to our identity, who we are and who will become. And there really are a direct pathway to youth development. We've been grateful to partner with CDSS on working to implement the foster youth enrichment pilot program in many counties across the state. It's a program that removes barriers by providing critical funding that can be used to ensure even greater access to these activities.

But there's definitely still work at the local level unfolding in that area. We know that access to these activities is something that we need to do, but we found that the barrier is oftentimes funding, finances, things like transportation, being able to actually fulfill that obligation, other things that we just really want to make sure that we amplify.

We know that as you're making critical decisions with regards to the budget, we're really asking that you continue to prioritize these supports and encourage you to see enrichment activities not as extra, but as critical. They are not incentives for good behavior to be taken or given away as punishment, but rather fundamental drivers towards our shared mission for positive outcomes for young people. Definitely a worthwhile investment.

Our members are across the state fighting for and wanting to maintain and keep the higher silk payment to maintain the furs program, as well as the housing, navigation and maintenance program as critical resources that support their everyday. You know, I say this, and I know you've heard it, but as I talked about my own personal lived experience, that being a part of these community opportunities, again, wasn't extra.

I have on my resume an opportunity from a youth led that I got involved in at 18 still to this day, that supports me in all of the things going forward. And I see this in every single one of our CYC Members, from the first meeting they walk into in a CYC space, to leading statewide campaigns, to facilitating national events, which is why they're not here. They're across the street leading panels and leading the charge for an even greater future, to running for assembly, graduating college, building careers and families, and even continuing their legacy in this room right now.

So we ask that you continue to hear the priorities of our members and invest in our young people. We know investing in our young people is a direct investment in our community, and we're just really excited to continue to partner with you all as you're moving forward and creating change and with the rest of the panelists. So thank you.

Thank you so much. We'll continue with Ms Elyan.

We're founded in 1985 with a singular vision, and that still defines our identity to this day. What would it take? What solutions could emerge, what outcomes and trajectories could be shifted if we simply said, there is nothing you could do in this placement, in this home, in this relationship that would lead you to be discharged from our services. And this founding commitment to stay with children through whatever it takes and whatever comes their way became known as our unconditional care model.

And at the heart of unconditional care is that idea that we will do whatever it takes to help our youth and families thrive. And that's a bold statement, but it's what's necessary and it's what our young people deserve. And as we've grown, it's been important to build that same commitment into the services and the work that we do across the continuums of programming that we've developed.

And we know that to be most effective for the dynamic, changing, and complex needs of our youth and their families, we believe that these continuums must include ample opportunities for prevention, early intervention, stabilization, and high intensity support. Not only are each of these components necessary, but to fully realize the vision to match needs with available services, we must create and invest in excess and flexible capacity so that the conversation can shift from what do we have to offer?

To what do you need to best support you? And yet, challenges persist to achieve this goal. So, given our experience as a statewide child welfare provider, I'd like to offer a few solutions. First, as was the intention of CCR continuum of care reform, we must focus on family centered care. Specifically, we need to invest in relative and kin caregivers as much as we invest in nonrelative care.

Outcomes for children, as we've all discussed already, are best when they remain with family, with extended family, with kin, and other permanent caregivers. And yet, supports and resources for kin caregivers who obtain guardianship of a child outside of the child welfare system are a fraction of the supports extended to non relative resource families.

To give you a really concrete example, we have a Seneca employee in one of our programs who became the permanent caregiver for three of her grandchildren, and that prevented them from entering the child welfare system. And even though she was incredibly well versed in the foster care and adoption systems herself, she still found the process of guardianship incredibly confusing and overwhelming. Once she connected to our own family tiese program, she was able to navigate the guardianship process and with more ease and access, financial support.

And while the assistance from Cal Works was valuable, it was only $400 a month, which is less than one third of the benefits she could have received if her grandchildren were in foster care, which would have been around $1225 a month. Additionally, these same youth are not entitled to the other entitlement programs that they would have been if they were in formal foster care, including services like enhanced care management and specialty mental health services.

So indeed, if we want to increase kin and relative caregivers and reduce entries into formal foster care, the eligibility for kin gap should be decoupled from formal child welfare involvement, and we must capitalize on the financial opportunities of the families. First, Prevention and Services Act to help redirect financial resources to relative caregivers. Second, as a system, we must commit to mitigating the administrative burdens that service providers face. We face numerous challenges that complicate, delay, and discourage further growth and development of innovative programming.

For example, getting licensed to be a care provider, then getting approval to Bill for early periodic screening, diagnostic and treatment services, and then having to contract with each of our counties and departments to do those things is very challenging and time consuming. The process we've created as a system to stand up creative, innovative, and child specific programs in California is very burdensome and can easily take over a year. For example, we operate both staffed and caregiving models.

Both have integrated behavioral health funding to ensure that every youth receives the intensive behavioral health services that they need and that we can leverage as much federal financial participation as we can. And yet, these two activities, licensure through CCL and MediCal, certification through DHCs and then county behavioral health systems, is completely separate, often on separate timelines, but also at certain points dependent upon each other.

So we must make it easier for providers who want to provide services to that one half of 1% of youth with the most complex needs to do so. And this is not to say that we should change our standards or shift our quality controls, but that the state has an obligation to minimize self imposed administrative barriers to licensing and opening much needed intensive programs for youth with complex needs.

Third, we need effective systems of care with multisystem integration, biome and shared ownership and you've heard a bit about this already, but it's critical that all key stakeholders are at the table and we're aligned in what we're trying to create. And yet so rarely do we have child welfare, juvenile justice, education and developmental services all at the table together. And I have not experienced 2083 to create this integration yet for us. There must also be financial shared risk in this as well.

To adequately support a system that is prepared to respond with prevention services and the highest acuity interventions, it requires a shift from a framework of scarcity and restriction to one of trust and investment. Seneca is only able to be effective in regions and in partnerships that seek to answer the question, here's what our communities need and how can we partner to meet this need, as opposed to what can you do with these very limited funds?

And we must create the context for best practices and innovation to be replicated. We're running some of the most innovative and intensive programs in California and across the country through our enhanced intensive services, foster care programs and enhanced short term residential treatment programs. But we are very limited in the locations that we can create those programs really hampered by those things that I've already shared. And when we have a county partnership, shared risk, adequate investment and ample capacity, we're able to have a transformative impact.

And finally, we need flexibility in our continuum to avoid bottlenecks and or overutilization of the services that we have already. No single program or service level can be effective as a standalone opportunity. And when we see regions with lower capacity with less robust continuums, we often see the most significant overstays and inappropriate use of unlicensed care.

So as a system, we must be willing to invest in developing capacity across several service types and programs and supports so that no youth will get caught in any one part of the system. This should include mobile crisis services like firs, differential response and short term wraparound interventions to prevent unnecessary placement disruptions and hospitalizations. We need to invest in family and kin caregivers. We need the development of short term intensive placement options to prevent the use and necessity of unlicensed care.

We need support for capacity building of family finding and engagement activities, resource family recruitment,STRTP development and enhanced model implementation. We need intensive step down supports in every county, in every region, like services like wraparound. So if you've heard me share today, there's not one solution that will help us achieve our vision in California, nor is there one problem that we're trying to solve for. This is highly complex, with a constellation of factors that we're trying to solve for, and yet it is solvable.

There are clear solutions that have been shown to be effective. These solutions need to be supported to flourish, to move away from our current system where it is still true that the quality and availability of supports you can receive is defined by your zip code and county to the system I believe we strive to create, which is one where no child is brought into child welfare unnecessarily.

And when they are, they are matched with families, programs and supports that are targeted to meet their individualized needs and are helped to exit the child welfare system as quickly and therapeutically as possible. Thank you.

Thank you for that very eloquent presentation. I'll have some questions for you afterwards, but we are going to move forward to Ms. Leslie Heimov did I pronounce that correctly?

You did.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. I'm Leslie Heimov, the Executive Director at Children's Law Center of California. We represent all of the children involved in the child welfare system in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Placer counties. And we have a multidisciplinary model which is unique amongst child welfare legal services organizations around the country. Before I move into the remarks I planned, I do want to touch on a couple of things that came up earlier in the day.

The first is that Director Johnson, and again on this panel spoke about keeping families together whenever possible, keeping children out of the system whenever possible. And I would like to suggest that our definition of whenever possible is typically inaccurate. We have historically thought about whenever possible within the current framework, which is a safety first framework, instead of whenever possible being defined as what can we do for this family in their home?

And there are so many things that we don't do that we could do, and that if we did them sooner and faster and from a community based perspective, we would never need to meet these families. And one of the best solutions to reducing the number of children served by our system is to never, ever bring them in. But we can't do that if we keep the same old rules about whenever possible.

The other thing I'd like to highlight that came up a couple of times for me in listening is that we have a number of laws on the books that seek to do exactly what the folks presenting today have said is aspirational. If we actually enforce those laws and follow those laws, we wouldn't have many of the problems that we have laws authored, some that we sponsored, authored by some of you, by the Senator who had to excuse herself.

And you asked one of the youth who participated about how to find that balance between youth voice and adult support and adult decision making. According to the law, every child has an attorney who's supposed to speak with them enough times to develop a trusting relationship, and that child is also supposed to be present at every single court hearing unless there's a reason that they shouldn't be. That is a child driven reason that they shouldn't be. They have a big test that day.

They don't want to be in court because there are barriers to them being in court. We don't enforce those laws. They're not enforced by the judiciary. They're not enforced, unfortunately, by some of the advocacy organizations as well. At CLC, we take those laws very seriously and we try very hard to comply with them. But I don't think that that's unfortunately the case across the state. And there is a lack of accountability in terms of a number of laws.

We are very much aligned with CUIC on their current focus on enrichment activities. It's been the law for 15 years that children in foster care should have access to enrichment activities. It is not enforced. So there's a lot we could do if we looked at what currently exists and held our systems, our courts, and the advocacy community responsible for what they're expected to do.

And now I'll turn to preventative services as an example, sometimes referred to as pre-filing work, meaning that multidisciplinary legal and supportive services are provided to a family who may be at risk of child welfare involvement or separation before the case is filed. CLC embraced this model decades ago and accordingly, have often informally provided our teen clients who are expecting or who have children with an array of supportive services, we've seen the benefit and that they are better prepared for parenting.

And as with any first time parent, the more we can do to reduce the stress and fear associated with both having a baby and then bringing that baby home, the better for the parents and the baby. Significantly, when the young parent is also a current or former foster youth, all of the typical worries are compounded by the very real possibility that they will be subjected to greater scrutiny than other parents and that the likelihood of family separation is high.

Just over two years ago, thanks to private funding, we were able to formalize the first of our programs specifically designed to prevent family separation and removal and prevent child welfare involvement. Our young parents support and advocacy center started taking referrals in Los Angeles in 2022. Based on the success of the program and because of philanthropic support, we were then able to add a second team providing the same services to former foster youth who are now expected in parenting and they could be any age.

This decision was made based on data showing that at any given time in LA County, and I imagine the numbers are similar throughout the state. Close to 20% of the parents with open child welfare cases were once children in foster care. Finally, just under a year ago, we obtained grant funding to build a parallel program here in Sacramento. All three programs have exceeded expectations.

Of the 132 clients of current teenagers and young adults with open foster care cases, of 132 clients served in the first two years, 89% avoided family separation and of the 11% initially separated, all have either reunified with their baby or the baby is living with the other parent. So that is zero babies in foster care. Out of 132 teen parents, our goal is 50%. This program has exceeded expectations beyond our wildest dreams.

Our program that serves adults who are former foster youth has served 45 clients since launching, and no petitions have been filed on any of the clients supported by that program. Again, that is zero child welfare cases. And our newest program, which started serving current foster youth who are expectant or parenting less than a year ago, has served 43 young people40, 90% of whom have safely maintained custody of their children.

And of the three where removal occurred, one has already been reunified in less than a year. And the numbers speak for themselves. These programs, as I said, have been wildly successful. Currently, California does not draw down four E funding that could provide federal matching funds specifically for preventative legal services.

We're hopeful that the Judicial Council and CDSS will explore expanding our current four E program to allow legal service providers to access additional funding for this important work so that we can continue expand it and have it be available across our state. And now I will turn it over to my colleague, who will walk you through what these services actually look like for families.

Thank you, Leslie, and thank you, Madam Chair. And while not necessarily directed to my comments this afternoon, I do come to you with some lived experience. As a former resource parent, I took in custody of a baby in 2018. She wasn't able to reunify and saw our adoption finalized in the summer of 2020. But when we began the pre filing work in Sacramento, one of the earliest lessons that we learned was many of our young parents were unaware or didn't know what they didn't know.

And so when we would ask what supports or help they needed most initially shared that everything was okay. But because we had dedicated staff to support our expected and parenting families, we were able to discover that many of our clients were, in fact, struggling with meeting just basic needs for their children with daycare and developmental services for their children being one of the greatest overlooked needs or meeting their own personal needs. So including housing and mental health supports.

To us, this highlights how many of the needs of our families are often overlooked. And it's not until there is a concern about abuse or neglect that support is put in place, which is often too late. Walking clients through obtaining their benefits, whether that's WIC or child action, providing information about community resources and coaching clients on how to navigate educational and medical systems is some of the day to day supports that the pre filing program has provided.

Leslie shared the statistic that 20% of the parents had child welfare involvement themselves. The clients that are served by this team are resolute in interrupting that trend and with a dedicated team at CLC supporting them, are better equipped to do so. The Sacramento team has supported clients through agency investigations and helped them to create their own parenting plans.

Thank you.

Thank you for also bringing in your life experience, lived experiences, because again, that tells us so much about where the story is. I do have a few questions and then if we have not finished the questions, I will pause at 11:45 just to give any members of the public opportunities to share their comments as well. So there's a couple of things that I was able to pull out of this is we know what works.

And the question is, do we have the resources to implement what we know works? Is our system designed so that we have transparency and checks and balances to ensure that what we know works is not only funded but also enforced? And are we able to then scale what works at the level of the 100 plus families that you mentioned, Ms. Heimov, to the thousands of families, thousands of children that we see in California.

So I'm kind of looking at the larger scale and funneling it down is where is that disconnect? Where are the broken bridges, the broken pieces of communication? Because this is a child welfare system that we've had for generations. You talk about breaking the cycle of the foster care dependency, but there's something to miss. There's something that's disconnecting from that longevity. And I'm just curious to know if there's any insights that you have.

Well, yes. The first thing that came to mind, and this may not be as articulate, but was something that was said earlier by the Senator who had to go around. Oftentimes it feels like we are. Sustainability is hard when investments are oftentimes directed towards fixing a problem that perhaps the system has created, well intended or not, right.

And the narrative around safety being the first and foremost, even in that particular exchange of questions, is if our value is centered around, I think, our values and the way we look at things drives where the money goes and then how things are implemented. And so again, that's a bigger answer to unpack. But I just really emphasize a couple of things that have been shared on the panel with regards to the way we look at the problem is going to be how we solve it.

And then sometimes the fixes are causing problems that can drain us both capacity and financially over time.

Yeah, I agree with that. And I will add, building on that same theme, because the vast majority of our child protective services interventions are from that lens of how do we theoretically keep this child safe from their parent, rather than strengthening the family and the community to keep the child safe. The current approach is far more expensive than a community driven approach. So in terms of resources, it's shifting funds, spending dollars up front instead of waiting until the problem is 10 times bigger.

Pre filing would be a perfect example. The very small amount of money that it costs to keep families out dwarfs to what it costs to bring them in. Right. But what we often see in funding schemes is as the population declines, the so do the resources. And if the budgets get cut because we're doing our job well, we can't keep doing our job. And we see that already in the way that legal services dollars are distributed for dependency counsel.

Right now, every time your caseload goes down, your funding goes down. But we're working to shrink our caseload so that we can provide better services to the families that we do need to serve to hopefully shorten their time and care and do a better job of actually providing them with excellent advocacy while they're in care. So I think that the funding piece is connected to, is certainly connected to solving the problem. And sticking with my theme of enforcing the law.

The law says that the government, the county has to provide reasonable efforts before they can remove a child. What reasonable efforts often looks like across the state and the country is that a report gets filed that says there's a problem. A, B, C, and D might have been able to keep the child in the home, but we don't have those things. So we've removed. It should be.

We tried A and B and C and D and E before we removed, which again, I think I would suggest would be less expensive and more community focused and certainly better for children and families. So it's really thinking about how we use the resources. And I can give you one other quick example, we have had a long two year work group going on in Los Angeles right now around family time.

And in most cases, the standard request from the department and the standard order is monitored visits in a neutral setting by some approved monitor when there's been a separation.

Right. And that's expensive. LA County says know spends a million hours scheduling an equal number of visits, and that's all staff time, et cetera. But there is no distinction between child safety in terms of whether the parent can actually care for the child full time versus can the child be safe during a two or three hour visit with that same exact parent.

And I would equate it to if I decide to let my 12 year old neighbor child watch my baby, my toddler for an hour while I run to the grocery store, that's a smart plan. If I choose to have my 12 year old neighbor raise my child for the next 18 years, that's a bad plan. Right?

So similarly, the way we look at parents and families, as if it's this all or nothing, there was a risk that we removed, and so now there has to be monitored visitation and all sorts of programs, and you have to complete your case plan before we return your child. That's not logical. That is a risk driven risk analysis. Protect the system more than serve the family approach, and it's very expensive.

So I think those are some high level we can think about, more concrete, low hanging fruit. But I think philosophically that's where we see the challenges.

Thank you.

Can I offer one more element to add to that?

Yeah, one more and then we're going to go to public comment and I can come back.

I can make this quick.

Okay.

I think I would agree with both of those comments. Another layer of complexity to the question that you are asking, I think speaks to the 58 counties element, that there are certain mandates that each of our county partners are working within and then funding structures in order to help support those mandates. And you also heard about the cultural brokers program being a best practice and something being effective.

And yet, if that isn't tied to a clear funding stream, a clear opportunity for counties to be able to implement that and then be able to report on the impact of it, then it's really up to each individual county and leadership to determine whether or not that's something that they and their region are going to invest in. So that's both beneficial to have that flexibility. It has allowed us as an organization to have many different sorts of pilot and innovative programming in different counties.

But what it also means is that that could look like one thing is happening in one county, and right next door that same opportunity doesn't exist because that isn't what is being invested in there.

I think also to the point of, I think Sophia made this point is that when we look across counties and you have a young person that is looking for a placement and her experience was a kin placement, that there was a reluctance to cross county lines and ultimately her situation could have been, outcomes could have been better if there was more integration between counties and that understanding that best practices, best solutions don't end at county lines. Yes. Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to pause from Q and A for just a moment and see if we have any members of the public that would like to address and public comment. Please come to the microphone. I'd ask that you state your name and your affiliation and you will have the full 2 minutes to present.

Hello my friends. My name is David Hansen. I am a Cherokee citizen. I'm a credentialed educator. As a kindergarten teacher and single father, I've had to battle this corrupt CPS system for 13 years in order to protect my daughter. I have personally witnessed its failings through the personal experiences and the experiences of family, friends, students, parents of students, and that of other educators that I work with.

This system lacks accountability for corrupt caseworkers and judicial officials who have personal biases due to past cases and their own personal feelings. It also lacks the checks and balances to keep those biases out of the courtroom. This system also lacks the checks and balances as well as accountability to keep feuding parents from manipulating the system and using our children as pawns, I do happen to have created a solution to all the problems with the system.

Considering I have been at ground zero witnessing what's wrong with the system for 13 years. I have written a bill that I have introduced to all 40 Senators and I gave it to Mike Sharif, your Legislative Director. Unfortunately, I came late to the game and so I'll try again. No one has yet been able to find any substantial reasons why this bill will not work. I would love to have constructive discussions in order to get this bill passed in the future.

So anybody in the room that would love to discuss with me, I would love to share it. Nonetheless, there were 3.5 million cases of child abuse in the US and in 2022 and 2.8 million of them were found to be non victims. With my experience, CPS doesn't just come to your house, see that everything's okay, and then walk away. No, they do investigations run you through the court. Separate families over issues that are merely speculative. And all of this traumatizes the entire family.

Children, parents, siblings, elders. It's a horrid abuse because the courts are in fear of the backlash from lawsuits if they make the wrong decisions. If you provide accountability and you provide discipline and you provide checks and balances, it keeps out the lot that you don't see because there's a lot of ambiguity in language, and therefore, there's ambiguity in law, and therefore, people manipulate it. The parents manipulate it, the court officials, everybody else manipulates because they all have their personal biases.

And then I also happen to know there's a lot of cases that they're afraid it's going to backfire on them and they're going to put the child back into a family they shouldn't or whatever, or a father that they think is abusive. So they're going to sit there and they're going to side with one person because they just don't want the backlash. And that's not fair. I've experienced sex. It's like a double standard for us. A lot of us men, we're automatically looked at as bad.

And the things the court has done to me and my family would sicken you. And what the judge has done would sicken you. It's illegal, and which is why I'm going back for an appeal to it. But nonetheless, it's just another aspect of all this that hasn't been brought up, and it's been touched on, especially by you guys here.

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you.

Name, affiliation, and you have 2 minutes for your presentation.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Alvarado-Gil and members, I'm Tyler Rinde. On behalf of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, representing over 165 different nonprofit, community based organizations across the state serving in child welfare and behavioral health. I'd like to uplift the remarks of our Member Seneca today on the need to commit to invest in care, mitigate administrative burdens, and ensure cross sector collaboration across system partners with the child's needs at the forefront.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for uplifting the needs of LGBTQ plus foster youth today. We were one of the co sponsors on SB 407 by Senator Wiener last year to strengthen the resource family approval process and prevent discrimination occurring for LGBTQ foster youth. And also, Senator Menjivar had to leave. But thank you to Senator for uplifting the op-ed by our CEO last year in calm matters. I'd also like to share around the direness of the nonprofits in the field today.

We have lost over 1000 short term residential therapeutic beds since July of 2022. While we have children and youth in unlicensed care every single day, foster family agency rates will decrease without a supplement from the state.

This year in July, with 36% of our FFAs at risk of closing their doors and 67% at risk of downsizing and behavioral health, payment reform in our integrated programs has resulted in significant shortfalls for nonprofits and disincentivizes field based services with a preference for office based services, which we know does not work for our families and child welfare. We look forward to the details and discussions on the foster care rate reform proposal by the state and further discussions with you all.

And thank you for holding this hearing. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any other members of the public wishing to address? Okay, hearing and seeing none, we'll move back to the Q and A with the panel. I made a note here, Ms. Cain, I think maybe this might go to you. I am a big proponent of peer to peer support and helping to mentor and guide and just be that supportive voice of. I've been there, I've done that. This was my experience.

How do you see that those peer support groups are filling gaps to existing systems? What can we do more of? And then the linkage to family resource centers? Because I think the family resource centers really give us that place where families can go and be seen and heard in the space that they own, in the persona that they own, without that punitive emblem of government seal. So I feel like there's these opportunities there to fill those gaps. But I'm curious to hear from your perspective.

Absolutely. I'll start with saying I think that CLC agrees with you of the importance of utilizing staff with lived and shared experiences. And so looking at the team that we have, I know in LA, but definitely in Sacramento, a huge portion of that are our peer advocates. And so it is doing that linkage and connecting our young families with staff who can help mentor and guide.

Having had that same experience being young parents themselves, and also coming with that experience of being in the foster care system. And to tie that into your second point, being able to provide some credibility to referring our clients to the family resource centers, that's one of our first community based resources that we want to ensure all of our families, but especially our young families, are tied to. But as you point out, I think there's just an inherent fear of another agency, another set of eyes.

And so having peer advocates who said no, I went through that program, too, or I'll go with you. Here's what they do. This is what they say. They're not a part of the agency in that regard has really been crucial because I agree. I think our family resource centers, I worry they're underutilized resources. There can be that one stop shop right where you can get all that support.

And I want to make sure all of our families, but I think earlier it was mentioned kind of the role of the cultural brokers I know for our adult families or parents, our cultural brokers assist with ensuring that relationship between the community and the community resources. I think our peer advocates do that same type of brokering for our young families.

I'm happy to hear that.

Yes.

And I've also seen at the family resource centers that in addition to making it a welcoming, well resourced place, there's those language and cultural barriers that tend to be broken down, and there's simplicity in terms of access that I think really adds a layer of trust with our community. So I also wanted to focus on the 58 counties and the boundaries between the 58 counties. And I know that we have some programs that are working very well.

What is missing or what are the opportunities for us to build those bridges of engagement around best practices? Is it going to take a legislative act to say all counties are going to do it this way? When we think of accountability and implementation, being a supporter of local control, I feel that our counties kind of know their communities best, but we're still lacking in certain areas. So in your opinion, what is it going to take for us to integrate across the 58 county's best practices?

Well, I can say at least from the legal services perspective, all of the peer to peer learning opportunities are generally driven by the advocacy groups, and we're not funded to do that. We just do it because we want to help each other succeed. For example, we have a monthly Wednesday morning at 08:00 call. It's totally voluntary, of course, and it's organized by the children's and parents lawyers together.

And we get together and we talk about what's happening in our counties, what new ideas, what's working, what's not. People ask questions and they help each other, but that's not formalized. There's no structure to that. There's no governmental support for it, and it's CBO driven, which is great, but we don't pay everybody and it's only those that are sort of the best resourced that are able to participate.

So I think there could be some infrastructure that would promote those learning opportunities without necessarily mandating a particular program or a particular initiative or project. I would like to think that those of us that are doing this work want to succeed at it. And when we have the resources and we have the information and the structure, people jump at the opportunity.

But especially the smaller counties we recognize at CLC, because of our size, we have a lot of ability to try experimental things to bring in additional resources. The fact that we have a person whose full time job is to write grants, most other organizations do not have that luxury. I'll call it a luxury. It shouldn't be a luxury, just like enrichment activities shouldn't be a luxury, right? It shouldn't be a luxury, but it is for us.

So making it easier for the smaller, for other counties and new organizations, maybe less established. We also have a lot of kids and parents in California that are represented by panel lawyers, and they get paid by the case, they get paid by the hour. They don't have access to the resources that the organizational providers have.

And I believe there are ways to give them access to those resources and to provide more structure without necessarily disrupting the way that they operate their county's choice to have a panel. But there could be some things that could be brought in to provide additional support as well.

I'm not going to be able to offer any huge solutions for you, but I did want to share a perspective from a provider's experience, which is that I think there are ways in which we would love to be able to see that flexibility across county lines, and that our ability to be able to serve youth regardless of where they live, but based on what their needs are, is, for us, truly only hampered by the piece that I was speaking about in terms of administrative burdens, that if we don't have a contract with a particular county to do a particular thing and that youth moves out of that county, we still might be able to serve them.

Our philosophy is that we should be able to serve a youth within 90 miles of their county of origin or of an office that Seneca has. So that could be largely across the state. And if we're not the best provider to do it, there should be a different provider that we're helping to refer to.

However, if a youth crosses county boundaries and we don't have a contract with that county to do the same thing, and we're not able to leverage, for example, behavioral health funding, again utilizing federal financial participation in combination with social services funding. A great example of this, for example, is wrap around services.

If that isn't possible, or we're not able to fund it through the county of origin, then it does create an untenable situation for the service provider that then prevents the individual from continuing to receive that service. And looks like that youth now gets discharged from a current service provider, is referred to a new service provider, and assuming that they have the capacity to serve that youth immediately, they then go through all of the same documentation process.

That youth is then telling their story one more time to yet another person about what it is that's going on for them just to open up services that were already happening, when if we could have that bridge between those two systems, we might not have to go through all of that process. So where organizations have the capacity to do that, or the infrastructure internally to manage those administrative challenges, we're able to do that.

But that isn't across the board, and that certainly is not every service provider in California.

And I'll just quickly add, again, maybe not a solution, but as already pointed out, there are federal and state laws that dictate what should be happening in the counties. I think that what we hear and often find is that accountability can no longer just be at, okay, we made a law, someone should be doing their job. What it is, is what is the process for when a young person's rights are broken or a county isn't following the law?

What is the process that can be in place to ensure? What does that accountability look like and that full scope of accountability. So I would say I really appreciate the detail in sort of resourcing, but I also just want to amplify that counties do have a mandate to do many things, and it is inequitable across the state. And what are the ways that young people can hold their county accountable in that?

Can I add one quick thing? On the first panel, Dr. Webster talked about data. If we kept track of, for example, how many youth over the age of four and over the age of 10 come to court at their court hearing, and we reported that data, that would be a very concrete accountability measure about youth voice. The law says if they're 10 years or older, they're supposed to be there, and if they're four to 10, they have a right, an option to be there.

Nobody counts that. It is not measured, as far as I know, anywhere anyway. But it could be because the court records who's present in the courtroom. And if we had that data, it would give you the ability to look back and say, Leslie, why didn't your children in Placer come to court? Only 20% came to court in 2023. Luckily, that won't be the answer.

And if that's the case, then I need to step up my game or we need to lose our contract because we're not doing our job. So I think the data bring us back full circle to data and how that could be helpful.

Thank you. So we are going to be wrapping up here. My last question is really, what investments do you see that are lacking? And how can we, as representatives of California, be good stewards of our children?

I'll just jump in and repeat what our members want me to make sure to say, and repeat again, that we want to keep the soap increase. Young people need access to housing and the housing market, as we all know, is out of control and inaccessible. And so we don't want to provide a resource that they can't attain.

They want to maintain furs. Many of our young people use this program. It is on looking to get cut completely. They utilize it, they want it keep it in place as well as the housing, navigation and maintenance program.

Right.

Thank you.

I'm sure there's more, but.

Yeah, I'll just share that. I think this was hinted at before as well, but sustainable funding for those innovation projects. So it was transformative to be able to access crisis continuum funding through AB 808. That was approved through 153, and that is one time funding implemented over several years. But that's going to create additional infrastructure that's necessary and many counties are now struggling with. So what then is going to be the sustainability plan for that?

And the second piece is just an investment in the infrastructure, as you heard from Tyler and his advocacy that was doing around rates. The rates for foster care providers, for caregivers, for king caregivers is woefully inadequate and has not kept up with inflation. And it is really putting our system at risk. The safety net that's going to be necessary to help ensure that youth don't have to go into higher levels of care.

I agree on the items from the budget. And we'll add, as I said at the beginning, taking advantage of the four e federal dollars, the matching dollars for preventative services to keep families out of the child welfare system, and second, the rate for legal services for parents and children hasn't been adjusted in over 15 years. We're expected to carry a caseload of 140. The funding formula is based on an assumption that every attorney will have 141 clients. That's absurd.

Still, it was 350 20 years ago, which was unimaginable. But 141 clients, for one attorney does not allow best practices and does not allow adequate delivery of services to the children or the parents. So those would be my two. Thank you.

Definitely echoing the preventative services, if we can have. I think we're fortunate for what we have at children's law center, but a lot of that is dependent upon grants. And so if we could have sustainable funding for our preventative services to ensure that, as Leslie mentioned, that our systems aren't even meeting these families because we're able to bolster those communities so that kids can stay with those families safely.

Thank you so much. Been taking notes. I've got a lot of different things in here, so thank you very much. I want to thank everybody for attending today, especially those who participated in today's hearing and gave their testimony. This has been very informative, and we've heard some wonderful insights that we'll be producing as a follow up to today's hearing and our recommendation for our budget discussions in the Senate and in our policy decisions for this year.

I did write down one thing I just wanted to note here. There was quite a few things that really stuck with me. But overall, when we do right by a child, providing that love and relationships to help that family grow and maintain that family structure, we don't only have to spend years trying fix or repair an adult, but we interrupt the cycle of foster care dependency. And I just want to thank all of you for being part of that solution. We now will adjourn today's hearing.

Thank you so much.