Senate Bill No. 636
(By Senators Prezioso, Jenkins and Foster)
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[Introduced February 22, 2010; referred to the Committee on
Health and Human Resources; and then to the Committee on
Government Organization.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §49-7-34 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to
reconstituting the Commission to
Study Residential Placement of Children.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §49-7-34 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 7. GENERAL PROVISIONS.
§49-7-34. Commission to Study Residential Placement of Children.
(a) The Legislature finds that the state's current system of
serving children and families in need of or at risk of needing
social, emotional and behavioral health services is fragmented.
The existing categorical structure of government programs and their
funding streams discourages collaboration, resulting in duplication
of efforts and a waste of limited resources. Children are usually involved in multiple child-serving systems, including child
welfare, juvenile justice and special education. More than ten
percent of children presently in care are presently in out-of-state
placements. Earlier efforts at reform have focused on quick fixes
for individual components of the system at the expense of the
whole. It is the purpose of this section therefore to establish a
mechanism to achieve systemic reform by which all of the state's
child-serving agencies involved in the residential placement of
at-risk youth jointly and continually study and improve upon this
system and make recommendations to their respective agencies and to
the Legislature regarding funding and statutory, regulatory and
policy changes. It is further the Legislature's intent to build
upon these recommendations to establish an integrated system of
care for at-risk youth and families that makes prudent and
cost-effective use of limited state resources by drawing upon the
experience of successful models and best practices in this and
other jurisdictions, which focuses on delivering services in the
least restrictive setting appropriate to the needs of the child,
and which produces better outcomes for children, families and the
state.
(b) There is hereby created within the Department of Health
and Human Resources a the Commission to Study the Residential
Placement of Children. The commission shall consist consists of
the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources, the
Commissioner of the Bureau for Children and Families, the Commissioner for the Bureau for Behavioral Health and Health
Facilities, the Commissioner for the Bureau for Medical Services,
the State Superintendent of Schools, a representative of local
educational agencies, the Director of the Office of Institutional
Educational Programs, the Director of the Office of Special
Education Programs and Assurance, the Director of the Division of
Juvenile Services and the Executive Director of the Prosecuting
Attorney's Institute. At the discretion of the West Virginia
Supreme Court of Appeals, circuit and family court judges and other
court personnel, including the Administrator of the Supreme Court
of Appeals and the Director of the Juvenile Probation Services
Division, may serve on the commission. These statutory members may
further designate additional persons in their respective offices
who may attend the meetings of the commission if they are the
administrative head of the office or division whose functions
necessitate their inclusion in this process. In its deliberations,
the commission shall also consult and solicit input from families
and service providers.
(c) The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human
Resources shall serve as chair of the commission, which shall meet
on a monthly
quarterly
basis at the call of the chairman chair.
(d) At a minimum, the commission shall study:
(1) The current practices of placing children out-of-home and
into in-residential placements, with special emphasis on
out-of-state placements;
(2) The adequacy, capacity, availability and utilization of
existing in-state facilities to serve the needs of children
requiring residential placements;
(3) Strategies and methods to reduce the number of children
who must be placed in out-of-state facilities and to return
children from existing out-of-state placements, initially targeting
older youth who have been adjudicated delinquent;
(4) Staffing, facilitation and oversight of multidisciplinary
treatment planning teams;
(5) The availability of and investment in community-based,
less restrictive and less costly alternatives to residential
placements;
(6) Ways in which up-to-date information about in-state
placement availability may be made readily accessible to state
agency and court personnel, including an interactive secure web
site;
(7) Strategies and methods to promote and sustain cooperation
and collaboration between the courts, state and local agencies,
families and service providers, including the use of inter-agency
memoranda of understanding, pooled funding arrangements and sharing
of information and staff resources;
(8) The advisability of including "no-refusal" clauses in
contracts with in-state providers for placement of children whose
treatment needs match the level of licensure held by the provider;
(9) Identification of in-state service gaps and the feasibility of developing services to fill those gaps, including
funding;
(10) Identification of fiscal, statutory and regulatory
barriers to developing needed services in-state in a timely and
responsive way;
(11) Ways to promote and protect the rights and participation
of parents, foster parents and children involved in out-of-home
care; and
(12) Ways to certify out-of-state providers to ensure that
children who must be placed out-of-state receive high quality
services consistent with this state's standards of licensure and
rules of operation; and
(e) Beginning July 1, 2005, the chair, or his or her designee,
shall report on the work of the commission to the Legislative
Juvenile Task Force during the Legislature's monthly interim
meetings.
(13) Any other ancillary issue relative to foster care
placement.
(f) (e) On or before December 1, 2005 2010, the commission
shall report to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance
Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources
Accountability
its conclusions and recommendations, including an
implementation plan whereby:
(1) Out-of-state placements shall be reduced by at least ten
percent per year and by at least fifty percent within three years;
(2) Child-serving agencies shall develop joint operating and
funding proposals to serve the needs of children and families that
cross their jurisdictional boundaries in a more seamless way;
(3) Steps shall be taken to obtain all necessary federal plan
waivers or amendments in order for agencies to work collaboratively
while maximizing the availability of federal funds;
(4) Agencies shall enter into memoranda of understanding to
assume joint responsibilities;
(5) System of care components and cooperative relationships
shall be incrementally established at the local, state and regional
levels, with links to existing resources, such as family resource
networks and regional summits, wherever possible; and
(6) Recommendations for changes in fiscal, statutory and
regulatory provisions are included for legislative action.
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(NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to
reconstitute the
Commission to Study Residential Placement of Children
.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.)