(d) The Protective Service Unit is further directed to

(i) Request and receive access to facilities, services, and other activities provided by the Department of Human Resources when deemed appropriate to the cases served by the unit.

(ii) Enter into contracts or agreements with private persons or agencies or with other public agencies not part of DHR for needed additional services. Such services shall include but are not limited to:

(1) emergency and other foster homes;

(2) emergency caretakers;

(3) homemaker services;

(4) facilities providing medical, psychiatric or other therapeutic services, and

(5) daycare facilities.

(iii) Provide or contract for supervision and training including in service training for providers (staff) of support services such as regular emergency and other foster homes.

SEC. 7. The Commissioner of the District of Columbia is directed to:

(1) Develop a comprehensive plan of family and child services which will make a broad range of services and resources readily available to families residing in the District whose children are, or are in danger of being, neglected. The Commissioner shall be responsible for identification of all resources for prevention, detection and treatment of child neglect available to District residents and of services and resources deemed necessary to keep families intact and/or to meet individual needs of children requiring substitute care but which are unavailable or are insufficient. The plan shall be designed to provide such services in a manner aimed at preservation of the existing family unit whenever possible, if such preservation will not be detrimental to the welfare of the child(ren). and provision to those children requiring substitute care such services as they individually require in an environment as homelike as their needs permit.

(2) Submit the comprehensive plan to the City Council for public hearings revision and promulgation.

(3) Develop and maintain the programs, policies, services, resources, etc., for abused and neglected children and their families, guardians or others acting in loco parentis as are required to fulfill the purpose of this act and so as to comply with any regulations or programs adopted by City Council hereunder.

(4) In furtherance of accomplishing the goals of the comprehensive plan, and so as to minimize duplication, conflict or fragmentation of services, the Commissioner shall coordinate the activities, services, training, research, etc., of all agencies responsible to him (under Reorg. Plan No. 3 of 1967 as amended by PL 93-198) insofar as those activities, etc., are directed at detecting, treating or preventing neglect of children as defined in 16-2301 (9) as amended herein. The Commissioner shall further seek to coordinate such activities of independent or private agencies and of the Courts by voluntary agreement or contract.

(5) In no case allow a child placed in the custody of any agency of the District of Columbia for reasons of neglect to be lodged in an institution, public or private without a demonstrable medical, psychiatric or educational need.

(6) Except where such data transfer is expressly prohibited by law, request, receive tabulate, and analyze data and statistics from agencies within the executive branch and such other agencies or groups as by agreement or contract agree to furnish such statistics, (a) as are considered by the Commissioner necessary to develop, formulate and operate the services and programs required by this act or (b) as are requested by City Council.

(7) Annually publish the tabulations and analysis of data collected pursuant to subsection (5) (a) and to disclose to City Council such as are collected pursuant to subsection (5) (b).

§ 7a. The Commissioner shall develop for all agencies responsible to him standards and regulations for operation in the detection, prevention or treatment of neglect.

§ 7b. Recommendations for said standards and regulations shall be solicited by the Commissioner from such agencies as provide services to neglected children or their families and private organizations under contract to provide such services, and from other governmental or private agencies or groups having expertise in the field of neglect and from the D.C. Neighborhood Advisory Councils as set up by P.L. 93–198. The standards and regulations shall be submitted to the D.C. City Council, for public hearings and adoption or revision. Review and revision of the standards shall be made in the same manner at least once a year. SEC. 8. The City Council is authorized to:

1. Request and receive the proposed comprehensive plan prepared by the Commissioner, to hold public hearings thereon and to promulgate said plan or a revised form thereof.

2. Request and receive the proposed standards for the delivery of services referred to in Sec. 7, sub-sec. 6 from the Commissioner, to hold public hearing and to promulgate said standards or a revised form thereof.

3. Request and receive annually from the Commissioner a report on the development and modification of existing plans and standards and the evaluation of the efficacy of existing social services for children, to hold public hearings Ms. GALDI. In addition we have made the following criticisms, both positive and negative:

(1) § 101 (e) creates an Office of General Counsel which, it appears to us, would duplicate the role presently played by the Office of Corporation Counsel. (2) § 102 would create a Central Registry, an idea which we support and believe important in serving neglected children. We have a few problems with the present draft of the section, however.

(a) § 102 (d) & (e) are meaningless without some provision requiring the notification be given within a specified time to a person reported in the registry.

(b) § 102(e) should provide for an administrative fair hearing as a first step with court review.

(c) § 102 (f) should require notice of release of information to the person concerned.

(d) § 102 refers to "the subject of the report." It is unclear whether this is the child or parent or other person. Since notice hinges on this phrase, it should be defined.

(3) §202 provides that all neglect reports shall be referred to the police who shall make a preliminary investigation. Such a requirement is not only burdensome but in many cases is counterproductive. While it may be good practice for police to investigate abuse cases, or to investigate other petitioned neglect cases (3) § 202 provides that all neglect reports shall be referred to the police who cases in which police involvement is not required and is not desirable. Moreover, the bill would require policemen to investigate factors totally outside their competence and expertise, which would be better done by social workers.

(4) We believe the broadened definition of 'neglected child' in § 208 (a) is very important to protecting such children. However, we have the following reservations:

(a) The addition of subsection (E) to DCC 16-2301 (9) is crucial. We would suggest, however, that this subsection be rewritten to include cases where a sibling has been previously neglected as well as those where the sibling is presently the subject of a neglect petition.

(b) In 1208(b) we believe the definition of abused child should be altered by inserting the words "willingly or negligently" in the third line of subsection (s3) to DCC 16-2301 before "allows to be inflicted."

(c) We believe there should be an amendment to the Judicial Procedure code sections to require that DHR or its agents pursue all available means of keeping a family together before the Court may remove a child from its home.

(5) Finally, we would like to communicate our endosement of the bills' provisions for the termination of the parental rights.

Ms. GALDI. Ms. Stein will complete the statement for our group. MS. STEIN. Thank you.

As Ms. Galdi indicated, mv name is Marv Ann Stein. I am the attorney with the FLOC Child Advocacy Office, and I would just like to make a few other comments that we have noted on the bills that we will introduce into the record. They have been touched upon, some of them, and some of them have not.

CENTRAL REGISTRY

There has been a great deal of concern and discussion about the central registry. We support the idea of a central registry. We think it is

very important in order to serve neglected children, particularly in a large metropolitan area with a transitory population, or a large transitory population.

We do have a few problems with the present draft of the section, and I would like to note these.

Now I am referring mainly to the way it is drafted in H.R. 15779.

NOTIFICATION

Section 102 (d) and (e) appear to me to be meaningless without some provision requiring that notification will be given within specified time to the person who is reported in the registry. These allow the person to object to certain things being in the registry, but by oversight I assume there is nothing requiring notification to the person that he has been reported.

ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION

Section 102 (e) should provide for an administrative fair hearing as a first step before providing for a court hearing. It seems to me that would save the court a lot of time, if there were an administrative review of an objection with provision under the Administrative Procedures Act for a court review.

Section 102(f) should require notice of release of information to the person concerned.

REPORTS

Section 102 refers to "the subject of the report," and it is unclear to me, and I think might be to other persons whether the subject of the report is the child or the person inflicting or allowing the neglect or abuse to be inflicted. Since notice hinges on this phrase, it seems to me that should be clarified.

Section 202 provides that all neglect reports shall be referred to the police who shall make a preliminary investigation. Now, we have heard a good bit of testimony on this today in both directions.

It is our belief that such a requirement that all reports be made to the police, and that the police make a preliminary investigation, is not only burdensome, but as Dr. Green testified, for instance, in many cases would be counterproductive.

Mind you, we are dealing not just with abuse cases in these bills, we are also dealing with neglect cases, and these could cover a variety of things, including children who are hungry, and what may turn out is that the parents just need to be referred to some social service for assistance, for food stamps, welfare, or whatever, or where they may need some particular kind of training in how to care for their children.

INVESTIGATIONS

While it may be good practice for police to investigate abuse cases, or to investigate other petitioned neglect cases at the request of corporation counsel in the preparation for trial, we believe there are many cases in which police involvement is not required and is not desirable. Moreover, the bill would require policemen to investigate factors totally outside their competence and expertise, and which would be much better done by social workers.

While it has been testified that the Youth Division is a specially trained unit, I think that it should be noted that the Youth Division is also undergoing some decentralization and many of the officers who are actually called upon to do investigations do not have a great amount of experience, and certainly they are not social workers. It does seem unrealistic to ask them to get into every neglect case and to investigate things which the social workers have been trained to investigate.

We believe that the broadened definition of "neglected child” in 208(a) is very important to protecting such children.

However, we do have some reservations about that redrafting.

SIBLINGS

The addition of subsection (E) to DCC 16-2301 (9) is crucial. This adds for sibling protection. We would suggest, however, that this subsection be rewritten to be even broader than it has been written, and it should include cases where a sibling has previously been found to be neglected. Presently, I think the draft provides that if the child is presently the subject of a neglect petition that the siblings can be considered also as neglected children.

There are many cases where a child has previously been found to be neglected, and there now appears to be a problem with the sibling. We think that those children should also be within the purview of the

statute.

In Section 208 (b), we believe the definition of abused child should be altered by inserting the words "willingly or negligently" in the third line of subsection (3) before the words "allows to be inflicted." There might be certain coercive circumstances in which a parent might allow something to happen unwillingly, or some other way, other than willingly or negligently.

We believe there should be an amendment to the Judicial Procedure Code sections to require that the Department of Human Resources, or its agents, pursue all available means of keeping a family together before the court may remove the child from its home. And I would like to emphasize that.

The concern of the staff in preparing this bill appears to be bringing more cases into the system. Those of us who have been involved in dealing with the system are exceedingly concerned that the system does not cope with the cases that it has, and will cope even less well when more cases are brought into the system.

In many instances, children are removed from their homes as a considered way of dealing with neglect. If a child is found to be neglected, let's take them out of their homes, and it has been testified children remain in foster care in this city an average of 7 years. That is the longest average care, substitute care, stay in substitute care of any city in this country, and I think that that may be a very telling indication of the lack of services provided to families and children to either reunite them or to find them some type of-find the children who cannot be reunited with their family some type of permanent care.

We feel that if we really are going to speak to the needs of neglected children, we must speak not just to getting them into the system, but to

what happens to them once they get into the system, and we don't believe the bill does that.

NEED FOR LEGISLATION

I think that whether this Congress is going to consider passing a bill, or whether this case is going to go to City Council, we would like it in the record that we think that the entire scope of care and services to neglected and abused children has to be looked at and has to be revamped.

On this line, I would like to say that Mr. Yeldell's testimony raised a lot of questions for me, and I would just sort of like to summarize, that while we oppose the creation of a separate agency because we think that that would not really include services, that might just add to chaos, and we don't think it has been sufficiently considered as to where-how an independent agency would function in the system.

We are not lulled by the Department of Human Resources general assertion that it has everything under control and that it is going to hand over a comprehensive plan that is going to solve all of the District's ills.

The City Council passed a regulation 3 years ago requiring the city to close down Junior Village, and to come up with a plan to ensure that children would not have to be kept in public custody. It has taken the department nearly four years to get that plan out of planning and to the city, provided, of course, that it does come out in September.

The services are not now available. Moreover, we have discovered in attempting to get certain data from the department under discovery procedures in a court law suit that much of the data that really is necessary to formulate an adequate comprehensive plan is not available, and that there are no programs to review and evaluate the programs in existence and to tell whether, in fact, those are being effective or not.

PROTECTIVE SERVICES

We believe the Department of Human Resources must be accountable to the present system, and that it should be required to explain how various gaps in the services, which Mr. Yeldell generally admitted have existed, will be filled, how the interagency agreements are going to become more effective, and what new services will be provided, how the protective services is going to work, what new resources will be provided through protective services, and what timetable is going to be given.

We would be interested in knowing how a child will flow through the system under the new comprehensive plan. It might be very helpful to us to have Mr. Yeldell outline to us the present way a child goes through the system and what happens and where some of the problems are, and how, under his plan, a child now will be able to go through the system, and his needs will thus be met.

We are concerned-he said that protective services is going to be maintained. As Ms. Galdi indicated, we have learned that protective service workers, in addition to protective service work, are also being assigned family cases. We believe that they are not receiving adequate training and that the standards for becoming a protective service