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(a) Any state funding allocated to counties for the purpose of recruiting, retaining, and supporting foster parents, relative caregivers, and resource families shall be used to increase the capacity and use of home-based family care and the provision of services and supports to such caregivers. Allowable expenditures of those funds shall include, but not be limited to, and shall be used to supplement and not supplant, resources used by a county for any of the following purposes:
(1) Staffing to provide and improve direct services and supports to licensed foster family homes, approved resource families, and relative caregivers, and to remove any barriers in those areas defined as priorities in the county implementation plan and subsequent reports on outcomes.
(2) Exceptional child needs not covered by the caregiver-specific rate that would normalize the child’s experience, stabilize the placement, or enhance the child’s well-being.
(3) Child care for licensed foster parents, approved resource families, and relative caregivers.
(4) Intensive relative finding, engagement, and navigation efforts.
(5) Emerging technological, evidence-informed, or other nontraditional approaches to outreach to potential foster family homes, resource families, and relatives.
(b) (1) The department shall provide available funding to counties based upon its approval of plans submitted by each county that requests funding described in subdivision (a). Each county plan shall be submitted by September 1 of any year in which funding is available. Each county plan shall include all of the following:
(A) A definition of the specific goal or goals related to increasing the capacity and use of home-based family care and the provision of services and supports to such caregivers that the county intends to achieve.
(B) A description of the strategy or strategies the county proposes to pursue to address the goal or goals identified in subparagraph (A).
(C) An explanation or rationale for the proposed strategy or strategies relative to the goal or goals identified in subparagraph (A).
(D) A list or description of the outcomes that shall be reported pursuant to subdivision (c), including baseline data for those outcomes.
(2) The department shall develop, following consultation with the County Welfare Directors Association of California and the Chief Probation Officers of California, criteria for the approval of county plans submitted pursuant to paragraph (1).
(c) As a condition of accepting state funding described in subdivision (a), counties receiving that funding shall, by September 30 of the year following the end of the fiscal year in which the funding was available, report to the department the outcomes achieved through the use of that funding and the activities that contributed to those outcomes. This report from each receiving county shall be made in a manner prescribed by the department, following consultation with the County Welfare Directors Association of California and the Chief Probation Officers of California. Using these reports, the department shall share best practices among counties and shall periodically update the Legislature.