BILL REQ. #:  H-1589.2 

READ FIRST TIME 02/22/13.   

     AN ACT Relating to measuring performance of the child welfare system; adding a new section to chapter 74.13 RCW; and creating a new section.

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

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 1   (1) The legislature recognizes that the goals of the child welfare system are to protect the safety, permanence, and well-being of the children it serves. The legislature further recognizes the importance of maintaining publicly accessible data that tracks the performance of the child welfare system, leading to transparency and public understanding of the system.
     (2) The legislature believes it is important to measure safety, permanence, and well-being such that the public and the legislature may understand how the child welfare system is performing. This information will also serve the legislature in determining priorities for investment of public dollars as well as need for substantive legislative changes to facilitate improvement.
     (3) The reports to the legislature under section 2 of this act will be used to provide feedback to the department. The agencies referenced in section 2 of this act will not disclose individually identifiable private information except as allowable under federal and state law.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 2   A new section is added to chapter 74.13 RCW to read as follows:
     (1) Within existing resources, the University of Washington, through partners for our children, within the school of social work, in cooperation with the department, and in collaboration with other stakeholders, shall develop measurements in the areas of safety, permanency, and well-being, using existing and available data. Measurements must be calculated from data used in the routine work of the state agencies' data and information technology departments. Any new record linkage or data-matching activities required in fulfillment of this section may be performed by partners for our children pursuant to agreements developed under subsection (6) of this section.
     (2) For the purposes of this section, "state agencies" mean any agency or subagency providing data used in the integrated client database maintained by the research and data analysis division of the department. Any exchange of data must be in accordance with applicable federal and state law.
     (3) All measurements must use a methodology accepted by the scientific community. Wherever possible, all measurements must address any disproportionate racial and ethnic inequality. The University of Washington, through partners for our children, shall develop the initial measurements by December 1, 2013.
     (4) The measurements may not require the state agencies to revise their data collection systems, and may not require the state agencies to provide individually identifiable information.
     (5) The state agencies shall provide the University of Washington with all measurement data related to the measurements developed under this section at least quarterly beginning January 1, 2014. Partners for our children shall make any nonidentifiable data publicly available. Partners for our children shall report on the data to the legislature and the governor annually starting December 31, 2014.
     (6) By July 1, 2014, the state agencies shall execute agreements with partners for our children to enable sharing of data pursuant to RCW 42.48.020 sufficient to comply with this section.
     (7) The fact that partners for our children has chosen to use a specific measure, use a specific baseline, or compare any measure to a baseline is not admissible as evidence of negligence by the department in a civil action.