Foster care: placement: family finding.

Assembly Members Solache and Bryan advance a measure that directly ties county foster-care placement practices to a public data-driven review, with a particular emphasis on placing children with relatives and kin through family finding efforts. Beginning January 1, 2027, counties would compare their rate of placing children with relatives against the statewide average, and for Indian children compare to the placement preferences outlined in federal law. When a county trails the statewide average, the county welfare director or their designee would consult with the Center for Excellence in Family Finding, Engagement, and Support to identify best practices that may be adopted by the county.

The bill lays out concrete data-analytics and process steps to operationalize kin placement goals. Counties must conduct an annual review of publicly available data, including the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, for a one-year period ending July 1, with the county’s findings assessed by October 1. If the county’s average rate is below the statewide average, the director must begin coordinated communication with the center by December 1 and continue this engagement at least three additional times on a quarterly basis. The bill defines family finding as an investigative process that may include computer-based searches to identify relatives and connect a child with kin, and it expands this requirement to tribal contacts for Indian children. In addition, the bill requires routine notice to identified adult relatives within 30 days of removal, detailing options for participation in care and placement, supports available to kin caregivers, and information about pathways such as kinship care, formal kin placements, and related services, with the State Department of Social Services and the Judicial Council developing related notices and forms.

In emergency or rapid-placement scenarios, the measure preserves and extends provisions for emergency placement with relatives or extended family members and requires timely assessment and potential licensing steps. If a relative or extended family member placement is considered, the county must initiate an assessment of suitability for emergency placement and, where applicable, require submission of an application for resource-family approval and initiate the home environment assessment promptly after placement; if the home is licensed or approved by the child’s tribe, certain approval requirements may be deferred. The bill maintains the core requirement for a social worker to identify and locate relatives within 30 days of removal and to provide needed information about options and services to involved relatives.

The proposal frames its aims within a broader statutory and fiscal context, noting that the increased county duties constitute a state-mandated local program and that reimbursements are not automatically required. The findings accompanying the measure highlight racial disproportionalities in foster-placement patterns, with specific data about the overrepresentation of Black and Native American children, and they cite external authorities on kinship-care benefits and the value of data-driven approaches to family placement. Taken together, the provisions center kinship placement and systematic family finding as the primary channels through which the policy seeks to address identified disparities and to standardize county engagement with relatives and tribes, while detailing the new data-review cadence and cross-agency collaboration designed to operationalize those aims.