HB 413 - INTENSIVE FAMILY PRESERVATION SERVICES CHAIRMAN KOTT announced that the next order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 413, "An Act relating to intensive family preservation services; and providing for an effective date." Number 1115 REPRESENTATIVE SHARON CISSNA, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor, explained the bill as follows: This bill provides for a program that gives intensive intervention. And perhaps a family whose child is about to be removed has been offered intervention in previous stages. However, in this model, the family ... is about to lose their child to state custody. And that is the point at which this program intervenes. ... It is imminent that the child will leave. ... This program was developed in 1974 by the Washington program called "Homebuilders." ... In that state, they have been intervening at this point. ... When the family is in crisis, ... about 80 percent of the ... children and families who've been served have been able to stay in their homes. And in that time, there has never been one death of a child who has remained in their home as a result of this program. The family is offered the intensive service. The intensive service must be of a very high quality. It has features such as 24-hour-a-day availability of the same caseworker, for up to six weeks. It's intensive, and it's short. ... The program must attain - and that's one of the high qualities of this - ... at least a 70 percent success rate with the families that are served, and actually that winds up being ... lower than the rates of approximately 15 of the states that I've been able to study; they've all been closer to the 80 percent success rate. So 70 percent is on the low side that we write into the statutes here, but the rate should be higher than that. There are approximately 30 states that have adopted this model. And in the HES [House Health, Education and Social Services] Committee, ... there were people who testified from both the State of Washington, who had worked in that program, and from the ... intensive family preservation program in Michigan. Michigan has approximately an 85 percent success rate. They've been able to dramatically lower ... their costs ... in the children in out-of-home placement. ... That's really the long-term goal of this program, is to bring the rolls down. This bill itself sets up a study that will then propose a pilot project, and ... they will also look for funding, federal and private. ... Actually, one of the people who spoke in the HES Committee suggested that they may be able to identify some funding sources, as well. ... So the funding part of it is what we're trying to do, so that it will not be [general funds], and the pilot project will probably be in one location, to achieve what's called saturation. You want to make sure that the service delivery is up to the need in that given area, so that ... you have success, and you can actually ... demonstrate that you can bring the out-of-home placements down. Number 1338 REPRESENTATIVE CROFT said he had looked this over for judicial or other policy choices, and he believes it is a wonderful program, from what he knows about it in other states. The main problem will be getting money to start it up. He wished Representative Cissna luck in the House Finance Committee. CHAIRMAN KOTT said he had looked it over, as well, and the only section that deals with the courts is Section 2, briefly. He asked whether anyone wished to testify, then closed public testimony. Number 1395 REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG made a motion to move HB 413 out of committee with individual recommendations and the attached fiscal note(s). There being no objection, HB 413 was moved from the House Judiciary Standing Committee.