LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


SB 118, as amended, Liu. Child welfare services: incarcerated
parents.
Under existing law, the state, through the State Department of
Social Services and county welfare departments, is required to
establish and support a public system of statewide child welfare
services.
Existing law also establishes that a case plan, which is required
to be adopted by the county for each child receiving child welfare
services and which includes prescribed information, is the foundation
and central unifying tool in child welfare services.
This bill would require that the case plan include specified
information, to the extent possible, about a parent's incarceration
in determining the reasonable services to be offered or provided to
that parent's children. The bill would also require social
workers to make reasonable efforts to collect and update necessary
data reg arding a child's incarcerated parent
or parents, once a consistent data entry field or fields have been
designated in the statewide child welfare database. By
expanding the duties of county officials, this bill would impose a
state-mandated local program.
This bill would incorporate additional changes in Section 16501.1
of the Welfare and Institutions Code, proposed by SB 597, to be
operative only if SB 597 and this bill are both chaptered and become
effective on or before January 1, 2010, and this bill is chaptered
last.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local
agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the
state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that
reimbursement.
This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates
determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state,
reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these
statutory provisions.