Legislative Update

L to R: Esperanza Ocegueda, David Channer, Sandi Mantilla, Asseblymember Ash Kalra (D-San Jose), Samuel Deck & Crystal Sarco.

On March 12, 2024 A Better Way joined dozens of other organizations for the California Alliance of Child and Family Services (CACFS) 2024 Advocacy Day in Sacramento. We spent the day meeting with elected officials to advocate for the needs of California children, youth, and families.

With all of the transformations taking place in the arena of child & family services, partnership and dialogue with legislators has never been more important.

We are grateful to the California Alliance of Child and Family Services for their leadership and for bringing together agencies and elected officials of common purpose from across the state.

A summary of CACFS legislative priorities is shared below.

AB 2802 (Maienschein)
Sponsored by CACFS

This bill brings flexibility to gender ID regulations in Transitional Housing Placement (THP) Programs, which serve current and former foster youth over the age of 18. The bill would end discrimination and allow more sibling sets to live together.

Current county practices exclude and discriminate against:

• Transgender, gender non-conforming or non-binary, and intersex (TGNCI) youths

• Co-parenting youths

• Siblings who wish to live together, regardless of gender identity

Greater flexibility in bedroom-sharing is particularly crucial in the context of sibling sets where young adults may identify differently than the sex assigned at birth or when siblings of the opposite sex are close in age and wish to live together. Prioritizing and nurturing sibling bonds contributes significantly to fostering positive outcomes by mitigating emotional and behavioral difficulties, enhancing mental well-being, and improving academic performance.

This is a vulnerable population. Addressing the needs of young adults exiting from foster care is critical to reducing the foster-care-to-homelessness pipeline.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, between 2019 and 2023:

• The combined number of gender non-binary and gender-questioning people experiencing homelessness increased by at least 183%.

• This disparity is exacerbated by race and age. Gender-expansive youth of color are twice as likely to experience homelessness compared with their white counterparts. This trend is especially concerning since homelessness worsens physical and mental health conditions, especially the already high risk of self-harm and suicide among gender-expansive youth.

Pregnant youth are also overrepresented in foster care. According to the National Foster Youth Institute, almost 60% of girls in foster care become pregnant by the age of 19. Current practices prohibit young adults who would like to coparent together from living together if they are from the opposite gender.

AB 2711 (Ramos)
Co-sponsored by CA Alliance, Children Now, CA Youth Empowerment Network, and the CA Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

AB 2711 requires school districts or county offices of education to establish a public health framework for identifying and referring youth with substance use needs to community-based services instead of suspending or expelling them from school for possessing or being under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or tobacco products.

Currently, under California Education Code §48900, school officials have the discretion to suspend or expel a student for drug use and/or possession on school grounds. Although the code does not mandate such measures, this administrative discretion has resulted in a disproportionate suspensions/expulsions with certain demographics:

• Over 59% of drug-related suspensions involve boys

• Over 83% of drug-related suspensions affect socioeconomically disadvantaged students

• Approximately 82% of drug-related suspensions involve youth of color

These suspensions deprive youth of valuable instructional time, thereby heightening the risk of academic disengagement, dropout, and involvement in the juvenile justice system.

AB 2711 will instill a public health approach to offer support to youth with substance use issues, which prioritizes keeping youth engaged in their education, establishes a community support system, and provides them access to behavioral health services and resources.

A public health approach will help stem drug use and addiction, ensuring all students receive the help they want and need, remain in school, graduate, and thrive.

Foster Family Agency (FFA) Bridge Funding
Co-sponsored by CA Alliance and National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter. Championed by Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo

For years A Better Way and other Alliance members have advocated for increased rates for Foster Family Agencies (FFAs). As the costs of living and of doing business have escalated, rate increases paid to FFAs have not kept pace. This has limited our ability to adequately support the needs of children, youth, and resource families.

In 2019, adoption programs within FFAs saw their funding cut by 20%, and it has not been increased since then, compounding the financial strain that foster family agencies are under.

A new foster care rate structure will go into effect in Fiscal Year 2026-2027. FFAs have been relying on temporary bridge funding to avoid extreme shortfalls, but the Governor’s proposed 2024-25 Budget eliminated this bridge funding – amounting to an 8.8% rate cut to FFAs.

This issue effects a lot of people. FFAs support 1 in 4 youth placed in home-based foster care in California, totaling 8,600 youth. FFAs serve youth with higher needs in home-based settings, including providing nearly 100% of Intensive Services Foster Care.

CA Alliance members spoke with legislators to emphasize that children, youth, and resource families need this bridge funding extended. We requested support for this proposal—which is championed by Assemblymember Schiavo.

We also emphasized that the permanent rate structure coming in Fiscal Year 2026-2027 must fully fund the costs of services that providers (including Foster Family Agencies and Short Term Residential Therapeutic Programs) delivered to foster youth and that they must include annual adjustments to cover increasing costs

Family Urgent Response System

To close California’s budget shortfall, the Governor is proposing to eliminate several important child welfare programs, including the Family Urgent Response System (FURS).

FURS is a child welfare-specific support system created by and for youth and their caregivers in 2019. FURS is comprised of a statewide hotline and local in-person mobile response teams in all 58 counties in California. These services provide immediate, individualized support anytime, anywhere, regardless of the issue, including in-person support typically within 1 hour. Services are provided by dedicated, specially trained staff who understand the unique needs of children and youth in foster care and their families. Since it’s implementation, FURS receives approximately 5,000 requests for support by youth and caregivers annually. The vast majority of these requests have resulted in stabilized placements and ongoing supports.

Cuts to child welfare programs like FURS threaten to harm the very children and youth the State have a moral and legal responsibility to protect. We will continue to advocate for refunding of FURS and for a sustained focus on the needs of vulnerable California children.

AB 2544 (Low)
Sponsored by CA Alliance

This law concerns hiring for positions in Community Care Licensing (CCL) Children’s Residential Programs. By law, any prospective CCL employee undergoes a number of background checks. For candidates who have lived out of state within the past 5 years there is an additional Out of State Child Abuse Check (OSCA). Federal statute allows for the employee to be hired once the OSCA has been submitted, as long as they do not have unsupervised contact with minors until they are cleared. California Law currently requires that the hiring must not take place until the OSCA clearance comes through. The average time it takes to clear an out-of-state applicant is 71.5 days—more than 2 months. Far longer than most applicants can wait.

AB2544 brings state law into alignment with federal law. The added expediency will help solve staffing shortages without compromising child safety. Under AB2544 the prospective employee must already be cleared by the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the California Child Abuse Central Index (CACI) check through Guardian, California’s background check system.

Family Resource Centers

Parents know and trust Family Resource Centers (FRCs) because they are already part of the community. Families count on their local FRCs for mental health services, housing needs, crisis supports, and basic survival items like food and diapers. They are integral to helping families find stability and thrive. Making sure FRCs remain resilient and supported is the best way to avoid child maltreatment in the first place.

CalAIM

CalAIM is an initiative meant to advance and innovate Medi-Cal to create a more coordinated, person-centered, and equitable health system for all Californians. The CA Alliance’s 165 member organizations are the primary service delivery network for Medi-Cal-covered children and families across the State. Four of the CalAIM goals were to:

1. Identify and manage member risk and need through Whole Person Care Approaches and addressing Social Determinants of Health

2. Move Medi-Cal to a more consistent and seamless system by reducing complexity and increasing flexibility

3. Make services more standardized and more equitable across the State, bringing consistency to the current patchwork of programs that vary by county

4. Reduce unnecessary documentation burdens to allow more attention to client care.

CalAIM is a bold and visionary initiative that holds great promise. However, there have been a number of challenges in the rollout that impact organizations’ ability to serve our vulnerable children.

CalAIM was intended to streamline documentation and payment systems to make service delivery easier. However, individual counties continue to maintain significant differences, creating challenges for providers, especially those serving multiple counties. These include:

• The state established county-by-county rates for MediCal services. Rates were established based on a number of factors, but in all cases the state set rates that they deemed sufficient to cover the cost of services delivery. However, there are wide variances in the passthrough rates from county to Community Based Organizations (CBO) like A Better Way who contract to provide those services. In some counties, passthrough rates are low enough to threaten the current system of care.

• Each county is responsible for implementing service codes to be used. In many counties, service code lists do not match State billing guidance, making an already complex system transformation even more challenging.

• Some counties have not yet implemented changes from cost reimbursement because Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are not able to accommodate the new billing processes.

• Some counties have set documentation requirements and performance measures that are inconsistent with State guidance pacing an unnecessary burden on CBOs and causing confusion as to what standards should be followed.

The CA Alliance is working closely with the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) and other organizations to remove barriers and ensure that members can continue to deliver these essential services for children and families.

These are just some of the legislative and policy issues that A Better Way and other CACFS agencies are focusing on. We are grateful to CACFS, to our fellow CACFS member agencies, and to our elected officials for the chance to advance and defend the needs of children and families.

A Better Way CEO David Channer at the Capitol