Bill > S594

This bill, the Family/Child Protection & Accountability Act, proposes several key provisions: 1. It directs the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to develop a plan to transition North Carolina's social services system from a county-administered system to a regionally-administered system, with no more than 30 regions, by January 1, 2022. The plan will be developed in consultation with a Social Services Regionalization Working Group. 2. It requires DHHS to contract with a third-party organization to evaluate and reform the state's child welfare system to improve outcomes for children and enhance state supervision of local administration. This includes creating a child welfare transparency dashboard and implementing a corrective action program for local departments of social services that fail to meet performance standards. 3. It expands the Secretary of DHHS's authority to intervene in and temporarily assume administration of child welfare programs at the local level if a department of social services fails to meet performance requirements and complete a corrective action plan. 4. It establishes the North Carolina Child Well-Being Transformation Council to promote coordination, collaboration, and communication among agencies and organizations involved in providing services to children. 5. It creates a pilot program to assist older youth in substitute care with obtaining driver's licenses and related costs. 6. It allows for a pilot program to waive the employment requirement for foster parents providing Intensive Alternative Family Treatment services. 7. It reduces the time frame for appeals of termination of parental rights orders from 180 days to 65 days. 8. It requires DHHS to grant or deny foster care and therapeutic foster care license applications within 3 months.

Budget and Finance, Health and Social Services, Justice

https://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2017&BillID=S594&votesToView=all