N.Y. Social Services Law § 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.