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Senate Bill 2080 |
Senate Author: Uresti et al. |
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Effective: See below |
House Sponsor: McClendon |
Senate Bill 2080 creates a temporary task force to establish a strategy for reducing child abuse and neglect and improving child welfare in Texas to be submitted to the governor, lieutenant governor, and speaker of the house of representatives. The bill provides for the composition and operation of the task force, appointment of task force members, and requirements relating to the development of the strategy.
Senate Bill 2080 amends the Family Code to require the Department of Family and Protective Services to offer adoption assistance benefits to a child between the ages of 18 and 21 if the department first entered into an adoption assistance agreement with the child's adoptive parents after the child's 16th birthday and the child meets certain conditions relating to employment and education. The department is not required to provide the assistance benefits unless funds are specifically appropriated for that purpose. The bill also provides for the continuation of foster care payments for a child between the ages of 18 and 22 if the child meets certain conditions relating to employment and education.
Senate Bill 2080 establishes a permanency care assistance program under which monthly payments are paid by the department to an eligible kinship provider who is the prospective managing conservator of a foster child. The bill authorizes the reimbursement of fees associated with obtaining permanent managing conservatorship, requires the executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission to set the maximum monthly amount of assistance payments, and provides for continued eligibility for assistance payments for a child between the ages of 18 and 21. The department is not required to provide permanency care assistance benefits unless funds are specifically appropriated for that purpose. The bill prohibits the department from entering into a permanency care assistance agreement after August 31, 2017, but requires the department to continue to make payments after that date under an agreement entered into on or before that date.
Senate Bill 2080 amends the Health and Safety Code to require the Department of State Health Services to establish the Texas Medical Child Abuse Resources and Education System grant program to award grants to hospitals or academic centers to develop and support regional programs to improve assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of child abuse and neglect. The bill specifies the purposes for which such a grant may be used, provides for a grant program advisory committee, and requires the department to submit a biennial report to the governor and the legislature regarding the grant activities of the program and grant recipients. The department is not required to award a grant unless funds are specifically appropriated for that purpose.
Senate Bill 2080 takes effect September 1, 2009, except for provisions authorizing continued eligibility for adoption assistance, foster care, and permanency care assistance payments after a child has reached the age of 18, which take effect October 1, 2010.