California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care

History of the Commission

"When I was six years old, I had an attorney who…sat with me in the back of court and explained the issues being discussed during my hearing and reported my concerns to the judge. This helped me understand why there was a restraining order against my father and that my mother was asking for custody. Without her, I wouldn't have understood what was going on."

Cassandra Harris, former foster youth, public hearing, March 2007

The Blue Ribbon Commission is premised on the belief that "all children need safe, permanent families that love, nurture, protect, and guide them."

The authorizing resolution that launched the commission also notes that foster care is intended to be a "short-term refuge," not a "long-term saga." Yet in California, as in most other states, foster care is all too often a long-term experience for children who, through no fault of their own, are removed from their families and placed into the mysterious world of dependency courts.

Judges, attorneys, and social workers struggle to do their best in a system burdened by crowded dockets, unwieldy caseloads, and inadequate information. Hearings are often rushed; delays and continuances confound a child's sense of time. Communication between the courts and other agencies charged with helping families is inconsistent and often ineffective.

The State as 'Parent'

When children are in foster care, the state has the legal responsibility for their safety and well-being. The courts function as a "parent" until a child returns home safely, moves to another permanent home, or becomes an adult and leaves the system. Yet how good a parent is the state to these vulnerable young people? What changes—structural, regulatory, and legislative—would help the court and its partners improve their ability to address the needs of children and families?

For two years, these questions have engaged the Blue Ribbon Commission, a high-level panel of 42 experienced leaders who first came together in March 2006. The commission is building on both national and state efforts to improve outcomes for children and families in the foster-care system, to prevent unnecessary removal, and to expedite movement of children from placement to safe, permanent families.

Pew Commission Recommendations

In 2004, a national panel of experts, the nonpartisan Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care , issued a set of recommendations in two critical areas:

• Strengthening Courts. The Pew Commission called on dependency courts to adopt performance measures in order to track and analyze caseloads, increase accountability for improving outcomes for children, and make informed decisions about the allocation of court resources. The Pew Commission recommended more effective collaboration between the courts and child welfare agencies and a stronger voice for children and parents in court.
• Financing Child Welfare. The Pew Commission recommended that states build a range of services to address prevention, treatment and how youth are transitioned out of the system. The panel called on the federal government to make it easier for states to use the federal portion of their child welfare funds flexibly.

The Pew Commission also recognized the importance of collaborative leadership and information sharing as key steps to improving how we address the needs of children and families. The Pew recommendations urged states to develop their own multidisciplinary commissions on foster care in order to examine the issues in light of state policies and regulations. William C. Vickrey, California's Administrative Director of the Courts, served on the Pew Commission and brought his support for the Pew recommendations home to California.

Building on a Momentum for Reform:

California has already embarked on its own state-focused and county-focused child welfare reforms, including:

• Implementation of a new California child welfare services outcomes and accountability system in 2004, including provision of quarterly data reports to counties to help monitor progress and a requirement to work with community partners to improve outcomes;
• A Child Welfare Council, established in 2006, to look at how agencies and government systems coordinate efforts in support of children and families; and
• Increasing recognition of the need for partnerships between the courts and child welfare at the local level.

In March 2006, Chief Justice Ronald M. George and the California Judicial Council, the policymaking body for the state's judicial system, officially launched the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care. The commission includes leaders from the wide range of organizations and systems involved with child welfare, as well as those who have been in the system themselves. Commissioners are judges and private lawyers, legislators and county child welfare directors, social workers and probation officers, foster youth and child advocates, community leaders and academics, tribal leaders and philanthropists.

The commission has held nine quarterly meetings, numerous public hearings, focus groups, and countless conference calls. With release of the draft recommendations in March 2008, the commission invited comments from the public and interested stakeholders. Following the public comment period, the commission will meet in June 2008 to develop a final set of recommendations for submission to the Judicial Council in August 2008.