HB-4457, As Passed House, June 18, 2015HB-4457, As Passed Senate, June 18, 2015
April 15, 2015, Introduced by Reps. Runestad, Lauwers, Tedder, Crawford, Victory, Johnson, Price, McCready, Hooker, Hughes, Howrylak, Farrington, Gamrat, Kelly, Canfield, Wittenberg, Hovey-Wright, Dianda, Irwin, Robinson, Plawecki, Byrd, Banks, Gay-Dagnogo, Greig, Schor, Yanez, Chirkun, Singh, Durhal, Moss, Santana, Heise, Rendon, McBroom, Chang, Glardon, Bumstead, Leutheuser, Kosowski, Vaupel, Bizon, Derek Miller, Chatfield and Garcia and referred to the Committee on Families, Children, and Seniors.
A bill to amend 1994 PA 203, entitled
"Foster care and adoption services act,"
by amending section 8 (MCL 722.958), as amended by 2002 PA 646.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN ENACT:
Sec. 8. (1) The department shall promulgate rules under the
administrative procedures act of 1969, 1969 PA 306, MCL 24.201 to
24.328, to ensure the comprehensive, high-quality training of
foster
care and adoption workers. It The
department shall consult
and may contract with colleges and universities, child placing
agencies, and professional organizations for the design and
implementation of the training. The training shall stress cultural
sensitivity, interagency cooperation, and respect for individuals
and families.
(2)
The department shall produce or contract with another
person
to produce maintain a directory of children under the
jurisdiction of the department who are available for adoption. The
department
shall make copies available throughout the state to
ensure that interested individuals have reasonable access to the
directory.
(3)
The department shall establish and maintain a registry of
adoptive homes to be used as a central clearinghouse for
information about prospective adoptive parents. The department
shall accept information from a prospective adoptive parent who has
received a preplacement assessment with a finding that the
individual is suitable to be the parent of an adoptee. The
information shall be filed in a form and manner that will permit it
to be readily accessible to biological parents or child placing
agencies
seeking adoptive homes for children. The department shall
charge
a prospective adoptive parent an initial fee of $100.00 for
maintaining
the information in the registry and a renewal fee of
$50.00
for each year the prospective adoptive parent remains in the
registry.
The department shall provide
information in the registry
without charge to biological parents or child placing agencies who
request it.
(4) The department may establish as pilot projects foster
parent resource centers. Each resource center shall provide at
least support for and coordination of respite care and assistance
to foster parents in obtaining day care. Resource center staff
shall pursue other activities designed to promote permanency for
children, particularly children with special needs, such as support
aimed at retaining foster parents. The department may fund the
pilot foster parent resource centers using money appropriated to
the department for the current fiscal year. After the pilot project
has been in operation for 2 years, the department shall evaluate
the pilot project on its organization, effectiveness, and success.
The department shall report the results of this evaluation to the
legislature, including in the report the number of foster parents
who utilized the particular resource center and the top 10 concerns
raised by those foster parents and how those concerns were handled.
Enacting section 1. This amendatory act takes effect 90 days
after the date it is enacted into law.