AB 403

As California shifts away from its reliance on group homes for children and youth in foster care, the first domino to drop is the elimination of 30-day emergency shelter facilities. As California rolls out the ambitious overhaul of its foster care system, advocates who pushed for the reform are hopeful that shortening timelines for placement, and other imminent changes, will disrupt the system and transform it into one that better serves children.

As California prepares to implement massive changes in how it provides care for foster children, many of the local agencies that will determine the failure or success of the effort — the county behavioral health departments — are completely unprepared to deliver on the promise of improved care.

California’s new Resource Family Approval Program (RFA) may produce more qualified foster families, but it may also discourage relatives from stepping up to foster their grandchildren or other kin. RFA merges the varying standards by which relative and non-relative families are approved to foster and adopt children in California’s child welfare system.

Most group homes in California are poised to embrace mandated changes to the way they administer services under a new law if they want to continue providing care to children and youth in foster care.