Community care facilities: criminal background exemptions.

Plain English Breakdown

The official source does not specify which offenses qualify for the exemption.

Community Care Facilities: Exemptions for Foster Youth with Criminal Records

This law allows current or former foster youth to work as peer support specialists even if they have certain criminal records from when they were younger than 21.

What This Bill Does

• Expands the definition of a peer support specialist to include current and former foster youth based on their experience with trauma, recovery, and navigating systems.
• Requires the State Department of Social Services to give exemptions from disqualification for certain criminal records to foster youth who want to work as peer support specialists if the offenses happened before they turned 21.

Who It Names or Affects

• Current or former foster youth
• State Department of Social Services

Terms To Know

Peer support specialist

A person who helps others based on their own experience with mental health issues, substance use disorder, or trauma.

Exemption from disqualification

An exception that allows someone to work in a job even if they have certain criminal records.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify which offenses qualify for the exemption.
• It is unclear how this will affect federal regulations and approvals since it involves changes to existing laws.

Official Summary Text

AB 2126, as amended, Elhawary.
Community care facilities: criminal background exemptions.
Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income persons receive health care benefits. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions. Existing law establishes a schedule of benefits under the Medi-Cal program and provides for various services, including various behavioral and mental health services that are rendered by Medi-Cal enrolled providers.
Existing law requires the department, subject to any necessary federal waivers or approvals, to establish statewide requirements for counties or their representatives to use in developing certification programs for the certification of peer support specialists, who are individuals who self-identify as having lived experience with the process of
recovery from mental illness, substance use disorder, or both.
Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services to license and regulate community care facilities, residential care facilities for persons with chronic, life-threatening illness, residential care facilities for the elderly, and childcare centers. Existing law requires the department to obtain a criminal record for all applicants for licenses for these facilities and services and specified other employees and officers of these facilities. Existing law requires the department to issue an exemption from disqualification to certain applicants who have been convicted of an offense, if the individual’s state and federal criminal history information independently supports a reasonable belief that the applicant is of present good character necessary to justify the granting of an exemption, as specified. Existing law authorizes the department to use its discretion in evaluating a
an individual for the purposes of making an exemption decision, as necessary to protect the health and safety of a child.
This bill would
add to the definition of a peer support specialist to include a current or former foster youth based on their experience of trauma, recovery, and system navigation. The bill would
require the department to issue an exemption from disqualification for current or former foster youth who have been convicted of certain offenses that occurred prior to the individual reaching 21 years of age and the youth will be employed in a peer support capacity and not a caregiving capacity and would not require any additional evidentiary showing.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF