SB 5393 - DIGEST

(SEE ALSO PROPOSED 1ST SUB)

     Directs the department of social and health services to develop, by July 1, 1994, a plan to decentralize portions of its decision-making and operational planning, develop new allotment and fiscal tracking systems, streamline and enhance child care licensing procedures, decentralize child care licensors, increase monitoring of and enforcement of unlicensed child care providers, increase incentives to encourage licensure of all child care providers, and begin block granting nonentitlement child care.

     Provides for a state interagency agreement to ensure the coordination of local program efforts regarding children.

     Identifies children in the foster care system who are unlikely to be placed in a permanent adoptive home.

     Directs various state agencies to contract with the regional interagency councils on a single, block grant basis, for the administration of an integrated program of community support for children, youth, and families.

     Encourages a study of the feasibility of creating a single state agency to be responsible for the programs.

     Authorizes a pilot project in a rural county in southwest Washington to improve services for children and families.

     Provides for a transfer of a juvenile serving a term of confinement to a structured transition program.

     Makes an appropriation of one hundred fifty thousand dollars to carry out the purposes of the act.