Existing law provides for the out-of-home placement, including foster care placement, of children who are unable to remain in the custody and care of their parents. Existing law, the federal Social Security Act, provides for benefits for eligible beneficiaries, including survivorship and disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for, among others, blind and disabled children. Existing law requires every youth who is in foster care to be screened by the county for potential eligibility for SSI and requires that screening to occur when the foster youth is at least 16 years of age and not older than 17 years of age. Existing law requires the county placing agency, for foster youth whose applications for federal Social Security Administration benefits have been denied, to file, or cause to be filed, a request for reconsideration with the federal Social Security Administration and, if the request for reconsideration is denied, to file an appeal, as specified.

This bill would also require the county placing agency to take those actions for a foster youth for whom eligibility for federal Social Security Administration benefits has been terminated.

Existing law requires a placing agency to act in accordance with specified guidelines and pursuant to certain requirements when acting as the representative payee or in any other fiduciary capacity for a child or youth receiving federal Social Security Administration survivors’ benefits, including, among other requirements, monitoring any applicable federal asset, resource, or income limits for the child’s benefits and ensure that the child’s best interests are served by conserving the benefits in a way that avoids termination of those benefits as a result of exceeding the federal asset, resource, or income limits, including establishing and maintaining a dedicated account on behalf of the child and preserves eligibility for other benefits to which the child may be entitled.

This bill would generally expand the application of the placing agency guidelines and requirements described above to all circumstances in which the placing agency acts as the representative payee or in any other fiduciary capacity for a foster youth who receives any type of benefit from the federal Social Security Administration, as specified.

Existing law requires a county, when serving as representative payee for a child or nonminor dependent receiving federal Social Security Administration benefits, to use those benefits for, among other purposes, purposes determined by the county to be in the child’s or nonminor’s best interests.

This bill would require the county to make that determination with input from the child’s or nonminor dependent’s child and family team.

Existing law requires the county placing agency, for nonminor dependents who have been approved for SSI benefits, but who are receiving federally funded AFDC-FC benefits in an amount that exceeds the SSI payment, causing the SSI payment to be placed in suspense, to forego the federally funded AFDC-FC benefits during at least one month of every 12-month period, in order to permit the nonminor dependent to receive an SSI benefit during a single month in every 12-month benefit.

This bill would expand that requirement to apply to all youth.

This bill would also make various technical and conforming changes.