The CAFCA Brief UpdateCAFCA Adoption Committee Minutes

March 9, 2006

Attendees: Katie Mason-CAFCA, Suzanne McInerney-Adoption Choices, Peg Long-CAFCA, Erin Jones-Lighthouse Adoptions, Megan Alldritt-Catholic Charities, Janet Langille-Adoption Alliance, LuAnn Oliver-LDS Family Services, Adrienne Elliott-Adoption Options, Carol Lawson-Adoption Options, Sister LaVonne-Child advocate/United Way, Kathy Mackechney-Adoption Alliance.

FBI Results Requirements:  Peg is working with Dana to try to make law and rules agree.  The rules require the agency to receive FBI results prior to approving a family for adoption. The law requires the submission of FBI results to the court for finalization. Verbally, authorities are comfortable with proceeding with a placement prior to receipt of FBI results, but it’s not in writing.  We made a suggestion to Dana that the requirement for the agency to assist in obtaining the FBI results be moved to the section of rule pertaining to post-placement services (to ensure the family has what they need to finalize the adoption) from where it is currently located (in the section applicable to adoption studies/approval).  Dana is looking at that.  Until there is a change in those rules, it would be wise to discuss particular cases with licensing via email in order to have written evidence to defend an agency decision to place a child prior to receiving FBI results.

Licensing Bill (SB06-199):

A) Cradle Care Licensure and Training: The bill creates a new category of child care license specifically for cradle care.  The intent is to minimize the training requirements and make the training more appropriate to the services cradle care homes provide.  It limits the use of these homes to placement of children under 12 months of age for a placement of no longer than six months in duration. When placing sibling groups that include an infant, a regular foster care home would still need to be used.  It was suggested that, while this may be a rare case for some agencies, it would be wise to keep one or two families that have a foster care certificate in addition to the cradle care providers an agency maintains.

B) Record Preservation Fees:  This law will allow the department to charge a fee for records preservation, but it will be departmental rules that will determine when and who will be charged such fees.  Dana wants to create a work group to assist in the creation of those rules.  The Attorney General is concerned that there may be no way to enforce the policy.  The state may add a regulatory requirement to the monitoring process to check for records preservation.  The department does not want to be heavy handed or demanding, but needs to find a reasonable solution to the problem.

C) Dual-Licensure vs. Separate Licensure: 

Dual-Licensure – A single CPA licenses a family for both child care and foster care.

Separate Licensure – Two CPAs license a family for different services – one for child care, the other for foster care.

This bill authorizes a family to concurrently hold a license for child care and a certificate for foster care – as long as they are provided by two separate agencies. This is great news for most of us and will allow more of the best families to provide foster care and adoption for Colorado’s children. We have heard no CPA concerns about eliminating dual-licensure, but if there are agencies that currently offer clients dual-licensure, they will need to weigh in on this discussion quickly. There is no grandfather clause in the bill, so families that currently carry a dual-license will be required to locate another agency to provide the secondary license or certification.

Public Relations: The group was not certain about how a maternity clothes drive would work.  They weren’t exactly sure what Kurt was thinking. J  Concerns were expressed about storage location and accessibility of that location.  More than one location may be needed (but were not forthcoming).  Questions were raised about whether this would be a one-day event or an ongoing event.  It was suggested that Mother’s Day could be a good time of year for this type of event, although that is coming up fast for it to be done at that time this year.  Kurt will continue to work out possible details with Maggie Spain at the Bawmann Group, along with the op-ed article(s) for Fathers Day.

SAFE Concerns:  Questions were raised regarding annual addendum and updates –differences and requirements of each.  There are also concerns about policies regarding SAFE, because the monthly meetings by phone are answering questions (rather than state answering them) and changes occur monthly with no minutes created, so there is nothing in writing that can be cited.  The policy that state does create has little or no input from CPAs.  Peg will talk to the CPA network folks about planning a meeting to address these concerns.  Also, Connie Vigil will be sending a letter out to agencies regarding SAFE that has incorrect details, as she was writing from a county perspective. She is aware that the letter is wrong (she discovered the error at a recent meeting), but was unable to recall it in time.  The committee is asked to read the letter when it arrives and send concerns to Peg so she can relate clearly identified issues to Connie.

Problems with Expedited Relinquishments:  Judges in Douglas County have recently drawn our attention to the requirement that they have to sign an expedited order of relinquishment (if they choose to do so) within seven days of the petition being filed. Prior to the administrative notice procedure, this requirement limited expedited procedures to those cases in which the father was signing as a co-petitioner with the birth mom, because the notice period would always extend beyond that seven day period and the court was forced to use the standard relinquishment procedures (hold a hearing). Now that we can provide notice prior to filing the petition, however, the notice period can run prior to filing the petition which allows the court to sign the relinquishment order within the required seven days after the petition is filed. Because the judge in Douglas County wants to use the expedited procedure, she has instructed that agencies wait until the notice period has expired before filing the petition.  This seems a prudent course for any county. This is what LDS Family Services has done in Adams County with successful results as well. There is a need for training on these procedures for agencies.  Kurt may be able to present a session on the process during the June 23rd CAFCA conference.

Next Meeting Date:  The next committee meeting will be held on Thursday, May 11th 9:30-11:30 at LDS Family Services, 3263 Fraser St., Suite 3  Aurora, CO 80011.

March 17, 2006
Kurt Olsson, LCSW
Adoption Committee Chair