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Date: Tuesday, August 19, 1997 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael Kharfen (202) 401-9215
HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala today announced approval of a demonstration project to improve child protection services in California. This is the eighth waiver for states to undertake innovations in their child welfare programs approved by the Clinton administration.
"The Clinton administration is committed to ensuring every child a safe and permanent home," said Secretary Shalala. "By giving states flexibility to test innovative approaches in meeting a child's particular needs, we can more successfully protect children and support family relationships.
"I commend the state of California and the counties taking these important steps to improve the child protective system," added Secretary Shalala.
California will implement three programs: the Kinship Permanence program, the Intensive Services program and the Extended Voluntary Placement program.
The Kinship Permanence program will place adolescents with relatives in a guardianship arrangement. The program intends to provide an alternative long-term, stable, permanent placement for children.
To minimize the need to remove children from their homes, the Intensive Services Program will provide individualized services to children and families. This program will ensure that the child's and family's basic needs, such as a place to live and a family or surrogate family, are met, along with other social, recreational, educational, vocational and medical needs.
Each program will test a different strategy to achieve a similar outcome of protecting children and providing a secure and stable home. The Extended Voluntary Placement program will keep children in placements up to 12 months in the hope that more children will be able to return home rather than be declared dependent and placed in out-of-home care.
In all three programs, federal funds will be available for these services and placements which previously could be used primarily to pay for the room and board of eligible children in out-of-home care.
"This demonstration's three promising designs offer hope for a safe, stable and supportive home to many more children," said Carol W. Williams, associate commissioner for the HHS Children's Bureau. "We look forward to working with California on this important project."
The state will operate each new demonstration program in specified counties throughout the state. The Kinship Permanence component will begin with four to 10 counties participating in the first year of the demonstration. The Intensive Services component will begin with as many as 12 counties (and as many as 1,665 cases) participating in the first year of the demonstration, and the Extended Voluntary Placement component will be limited to 10 counties in the first year.
The demonstration provisions will be implemented no earlier than Oct. 1, 1997, and no later than Sept. 30, 1998, for a period not to exceed five years.
Any savings resulting from the waiver demonstration will be reinvested in child welfare services. Projects conducted under this waiver authority will be cost-neutral to the federal government, and include a rigorous evaluation.