S-1846.1  _______________________________________________

                    SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5296

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      56th Legislature     1999 Regular Session

By Senate Committee on Human Services & Corrections (originally sponsored by Senators Costa, Long, McAuliffe, Prentice, Shin, Fairley, Kohl‑Welles, Rasmussen, Haugen, Gardner and Kline)

Read first time 03/01/1999.

Creating a program to fund prevention programs for youth who have not yet entered the juvenile justice system.

    AN ACT Relating to deterring juvenile violence; amending RCW 70.190.005; and making an appropriation.

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

    Sec. 1.  RCW 70.190.005 and 1994 sp.s. c 7 s 301 are each amended to read as follows:

    The legislature finds that a primary goal of public involvement in the lives of children has been to strengthen the family unit.

    However, the legislature recognizes that traditional two-parent families with one parent routinely at home are now in the minority.  In addition, extended family and natural community supports have eroded drastically.  The legislature recognizes that public policy assumptions must be altered to account for this new social reality.  Public effort must be redirected to expand, support, strengthen, and help reconstruct family and community networks to assist in meeting the needs of children.

    The legislature finds that a broad variety of services for children and families has been independently designed over the years and that the coordination and cost-effectiveness of these services will be enhanced through the adoption of an approach that allows communities to prioritize and coordinate services to meet their local needs.  The legislature further finds that the most successful programs for reaching and working with at-risk families and children treat individuals' problems in the context of the family, offer a broad spectrum of services, are flexible in the use of program resources, and use staff who are trained in crossing traditional program categories in order to broker services necessary to fully meet a family's needs.

    The legislature further finds that eligibility criteria, expenditure restrictions, and reporting requirements of state and federal categorical programs often create barriers toward the effective use of resources for addressing the multiple problems of at-risk families and children.

The legislature also finds that research has shown that interventions designed to deter juvenile violence and delinquency are cost-effective and compare favorably with the cost of detention.

    The purposes of this chapter are:  (1) To modify public policy and programs to empower communities to support and respond to the needs of individual families and children ((and)); (2) to improve the responsiveness of services for children and families at risk by facilitating greater coordination and flexibility in the use of funds by state and local service agencies; and (3) to develop a program to fund research-based prevention and early intervention programs targeting youth and their families who have not yet entered the juvenile justice system.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2.  The sum of five million dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated from the general fund to the family policy council for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2001, to carry out the purposes of this act.

                            --- END ---