442 - Child care review service; establishment, operations and procedure.
§ 442. Child care review service; establishment, operations and procedure. 1. The department, in consultation with the advisory committee, shall establish and operate a child care review service to accomplish the purposes of this title, for all children who are in the care of an authorized agency and shall make such regulations as are appropriate to implement this title. 2. The service shall be implemented with respect to all children under the age of twenty-one years for whom an authorized agency is providing foster care as defined in subdivision (c) of section one thousand eighty-seven of the family court act and for whom an application is pending to an authorized agency for foster care. 3. The department is authorized to enter into agreements with any person, firm, organization or association for the whole or any part of the design or operation of the service as described in this title. Any such agreements shall specify that such person, firm, corporation or association shall safeguard the confidentiality of information received or maintained by the service, in the same manner, and will remain subject to the same confidentiality requirements, as the department. In addition, any such agreement shall require such person, firm, corporation or association to comply with other applicable federal and state laws protecting the confidentiality of the information received or maintained by the service. 4. The service shall collect, maintain, update, and distribute, as provided in this title, information from each authorized agency to further the purpose of this title. 5. The service may request from any authorized agency, and such agency shall submit to the service all information, including updating of information, in the form and manner and at such times as the department may require that is appropriate to the purposes and operation of the service. 6. Information to be submitted to or collected by the service, pursuant to subdivisions four and five, shall, to the extent possible, be in compatible form so as to facilitate the making of public policy decisions relating to child care programs supported by public funds and administered by various state, local and voluntary agencies. 7. In designing the service, the department, in consultation with the advisory committee, shall review all information reporting forms and financial claims forms, and shall make every effort to consolidate and, where appropriate, eliminate duplicative claiming and information reporting forms in order to develop uniform statewide claiming forms and information reporting forms. 8. Subject to regulations of the department the service shall: (a) prepare and make available on a regular basis to each authorized agency such data as they may require to meet the purposes of this title; (b) issue regular reports setting forth aggregate statewide and local statistical data with appropriate analyses, but not including individual identifying information; and (c) issue reports as to the capabilities of the service and the types of information maintained by the service. 9. The department in consultation with the advisory committee shall prepare and submit an annual report to the governor and the legislature as part of the annual report required to be filed prior to the fifteenth day of December of each year by subdivision (d) of section seventeen of this chapter on its progress in the development and operation of the service, including any significant problems encountered or anticipated in the design and operation of the service and any recommendations for administrative or legislative changes that would further the purposes of this title.10. The state child care review service established pursuant to this title shall design and implement a system to: (a) monitor all financial claims made by social services districts for each child in foster care and child and family in receipt of preventive services pursuant to title four of this chapter; (b) compile and maintain a cumulative record of information with respect to actions taken on behalf of each individual child throughout his or her length of stay in foster care; (c) compile and maintain information on actions taken by local social services districts to initiate judicial proceedings as provided by section three hundred fifty-eight-a of this chapter and to comply with judicial orders made pursuant to section one thousand eighty-nine of the family court act, to refer legally free children to the state adoption service pursuant to section three hundred seventy-two-c of this chapter, and to comply with the provisions of section four hundred nine-e of this article and the regulations of the office of children and family services promulgated thereunder; and (e) compile and maintain comparative data for authorized agencies including, but not limited to, characteristics and numbers of children entering care and their families, admissions practices, delineated reasons for initial and continued placement or provision of preventive or child protective services, length of stay in care, length of time in receipt of preventive services or child protective services, foster care reentry rates, number of children discharged to parents and relatives, the characteristics, numbers and rates of children leaving foster care through adoption, costs of care and preventive services and other information indicative of authorized agency performance.