Born out of a perceived gap in the care and well-being of young children being released from the hospital, Senate bill 150 looks to require the Children, Youth and Family Services Department to conduct assessments, provide services and conduct investigations upon the failure to comply with a plan of care for that child.
Sponsored by Senator Gay Kernan, the bill was run through its paces during Monday’s Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee meeting.
Most of the questions and concerns expressed by both committee members and a representative from CYFD were about language included in the bill, namely using the word “shall” when it came to proceeding with investigations and conducting family assessments.
The inclusion of that language according to the CYFD official would run the risk of increasing the number of families the department would need to work with and the possibility of investigating individuals who would otherwise be left to care for their child on their own.
In order to address these concerns, the bill was amended to remove the “shall” and replace them with “may”, allowing for more room to amend the process further down the line.
Senator Gerald Ortiz Y Pino also shared that moving forward, hospitals, CYFD and families need to have lines of community open to ensure the care of the child comes first and lessens the likelihood that these children and their well-being is left unknown to the state and the hospital.
“The model we have now involves too many, it’s like a relay team. We’ve got the hospital developing the plan of care, handing it off to the care coordinator, who’s handing it off to CYFD and there’s too many ways of dropping the baton, too many ways for the family to fall through the cracks.”