HOUSE BILL REPORT

HB 1911

BYRepresentatives Valle and Brekke

Amending provisions relating to dependent children.

House Committe on Human Services

Majority Report:  The substitute bill be substituted therefor and the substitute bill do pass.  (8)

      Signed by Representatives Brekke, Chair; Scott, Vice Chair; Anderson, Leonard, Moyer, Padden, H. Sommers and Sutherland.

House Staff:Jean Wessman (786-7132)

AS REPORTED BY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES FEBRUARY 3, 1988

BACKGROUND:

Current statute does not specify when a dependency proceeding is appropriate or inappropriate for specific familial structures where the noncustodial parent is the alleged abuser of the child.  In some instances the dependency statutes have been used inappropriately, placing a fit and able custodial parent into an adversarial relationship with the courts and even causing the loss of that custody in certain cases.  This has caused extreme hardship to those parents who turned to the system believing they were protecting their children by involving the courts and Department of Social and Health Services.  It is suggested these types of cases should have an alternative remedy to utilization of the dependency process.

The current alternative residential placement procedure was enacted in 1979 as part of the overall reform of the state's juvenile justice code.  Certain courts and judges in the state do not utilize the procedure causing inappropriate use of the dependency process.

SUMMARY:

SUBSTITUTE BILL:  The preamble to the dependency statute is amended to exclude those cases from the dependency procedure where the custodial parent is a fit, able and willing parent and the noncustodial parent is suspected of abusing the child. Such cases are to utilize alternative laws.

The alternative residential placement procedure is amended to allow the filing of a writ of mandamus when a judge or court refuses to act upon a petition.  The Department is allowed forty-eight hours to affect a reconciliation between the parents and the child through their family assessment process before a petition for an alternative residential placement must be filed.  The Department is allowed to request that the court dismiss a petition or order for an alternative residential placement when a child is sixteen or older, has been a runaway for thirty consecutive days,  or the parent or child refuse treatment, or the Department has exhausted available resources.  Both parties to the alternative residential placement procedure are equally liable for contempt and both shall be informed of the possibility of contempt immediately.

SUBSTITUTE BILL COMPARED TO THE ORIGINAL:  The specific referral to domestic violence and harassment laws for those cases not appropriate for dependency is deleted. The forty-eight hour family assessment process is added.  The ability of the Department to request dismissal of a petition or order for an alternative residential placement based upon specific conditions is added.  The equalization of the contempt process is added.

Fiscal Note:      Requested February 1, 1988.

House Committee ‑ Testified For:    Margie Krantz, Citizen; Ron Hanna and Joyce Hopson, Department of Social and Health Services (with concerns.)

House Committee - Testified Against:      Pat Thibaudeau, Washington Community Mental Health Council.

House Committee - Testimony For:    Dependency is not appropriate for this type of case and there should be an alternative process by which to obtain services from the Department that is short of dependency.  Some judges and courts ignore the alternative residential placement procedure and any tool that will get them to utilize it when appropriate is very welcome.  In some areas, alternative residential placements are overused.  A forty-eight hour cooling out period will assist in preventing the overuse of the procedure.  The Department also needs to be able to ask the court for dismissal of the petition or order for an alternative residential procedure when it is not in anyone's best interests to continue.  Contempt proceedings tend to fall upon the children the hardest and equal treatment for the parents should be ensured.

House Committee - Testimony Against:      The domestic violence and harassment laws are not appropriate for protecting children in cases where the noncustodial parent is suspected or has been convicted of abuse of the children.  A writ of mandamus may encourage judges and courts to utilize alternative residential placements but will do nothing to deal with Department of Social and Health Service caseworkers who still inappropriately use dependency actions.