AN ACT Relating to a children's system of care; adding a new section to chapter 28A.300 RCW; adding a new chapter to Title 74 RCW; creating a new section; and providing an expiration date.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. (1) The secretary shall establish demonstration sites for statewide implementation of a children's system of care. The demonstration sites shall be selected using the following criteria:

(a) The system administrator must be the recipient of funding by the federal center for mental health services for the purpose of developing a system of care for children with emotional and behavioral disorders; and

(b) The system administrator may be a project site under a Title IV-E waiver.

(2) For the purposes of this section, "children's system of care" means a centralized community care coordination system representing a philosophy about the way services should be delivered to children and their families, using existing resources of various child-serving agencies addressing the problems of children with emotional and behavioral disorders. The agencies represented may include providers of mental health services, drug and alcohol services, services for the developmentally disabled, county juvenile justice and state juvenile rehabilitation, child welfare, and special education.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. The goals of the children's system of care are to:

(1) Maintain a multiagency collaborative planning and system management mechanism at the state and local levels through the establishment of an oversight committee at the local level in accordance with the principles and program requirements associated with the federal center for children's mental health services;

(2) Recommend and make necessary financing changes to support individualized and flexible home and community‑based services and supports that are child centered, family driven, strength based, and culturally competent;

(3) Support a common screening tool and integrated care coordination system;

(4) Recommend and make necessary changes in contracting to support integrated service delivery;

(5) Promote and increase the expansion of system capacity for children and their families in each demonstration site community;

(6) Develop the capacity of family members to provide support for one another and to strengthen the family voice in system implementation through the utilization of a citizens' advisory board as described in section 5 of this act and through other outreach activities;

(7) Conduct research and draw on outside consultation to identify best practices to inform system development and refinement; and

(8) Demonstrate cost‑effectiveness by creating system efficiencies that generate savings from the current level of expenditures for children being served by the participating agencies. These savings must be used to provide more services to the children involved in the project, or to serve more children.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. The secretary shall assure collaboration with each demonstration site by child-serving entities operated directly by the department or by departmental contractors. A collaboration contract or memorandum of understanding shall be developed by the demonstration site and the secretary for that purpose.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. A new section is added to chapter 28A.300 RCW to read as follows:

It is the expectation of the legislature that local school districts shall collaborate with each children's system of care demonstration site established under section 1 of this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. (1) A citizens' advisory board and the agencies participating in each demonstration site for a children's system of care established under section 1 of this act shall establish evaluation criteria consistent with the goals set forth in section 2 of this act. The evaluation criteria shall be developed no later than sixty days after the effective date of this act.

(2) The evaluation shall be conducted by an entity with experience in evaluating organizations that are:

(a) Recipients of funding by the federal center for mental health services for the purpose of developing a system of care for children with emotional and behavioral disorders; and

(b) A project site under a Title IV-E waiver.

The demonstration site shall submit a report to the children and family services committee of the house of representatives and to the human services and corrections committee of the senate, or their successors. An interim report shall be submitted to the committees by December 1, 2002. A final report shall be submitted to the committees by December 1, 2003.

(3) This section expires January 1, 2004.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. Sections 1 through 3 of this act constitute a new chapter in Title 74 RCW.