2006 Massachusetts Code - Section 23. Responsibility of department to provide foster care for children;assignment of support rights; sibling visitation rights.

  Section 23. The department shall have the responsibility, including financial responsibility, for providing foster care for children through its own resources or by use of appropriate voluntary agencies according to the rules and regulations of the department in the following instances:

  A. Upon the application of a parent or guardian or any person acting in behalf of the child, or of the child himself, the department may accept for foster care any child under eighteen years who in its judgment is in need of foster care. Said judgment shall be exercised in accordance with guidelines and standards developed by said department and shall be reviewed by the executive office of human services. Such acceptance shall entail no abrogation of parental rights or responsibilities, but the department may accept from parents a temporary delegation of certain rights and responsibilities necessary to provide the foster care for a period of time under conditions agreed upon by both and terminable by either.

  The department may file a petition for care and responsibility in the probate court on behalf of a child accepted into foster care if the department determines that continued placement beyond 6 months is required for reasons unrelated to parental unfitness and the parent consents to continued placement. At the initial hearing on the petition, the court shall determine whether continued placement with the department is in the child's best interests and shall issue its determination, including the rationale therefor, in written form. The allowance of the petition shall not abrogate a parent's right to make decisions on behalf of the child, but the department may accept from the parent a temporary delegation of certain rights and responsibilities necessary to continue to provide foster care for the child under conditions agreed upon by both and terminable by either.

  Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, a permanency hearing shall be held within 60 days of the transfer of responsibility by order of the probate court or within 12 months of initial placement into foster care with the department, whichever date is later. The hearing shall be conducted as provided in section 29B.

  Whenever the child is placed in family foster care, the court shall ensure that grandparents, upon their request, have access to reasonable visitation rights with the child who is the subject of the petition and that the department establish a schedule for such visitation unless it is determined by the court or the department that such visitation is not in the child's best interests. In determining the best interests of the child the court or the department shall consider the goal of the service plan and the relationship between the grandparents and the child's parents or legal guardian. Grandparents who are denied the right to visit with said child may appeal a denial by the department through the department's fair hearing process. The department may establish reasonable conditions governing grandparents visitation, including but not limited to requiring that the grandparents be restrained from revealing the whereabouts of the child's placement.

  The court shall, whenever reasonable and practical, and based upon a determination of the best interests of the child, ensure that children placed in foster care who are separated from siblings who are either in other foster or pre-adoptive homes, or in the homes of parents or extended family members, have access to, and visitation rights with, such siblings throughout the period of placement in the care and custody of the commonwealth, or subsequent to such placements if the children or their siblings are separated through adoption or long-term placements in foster care.

  The courts shall determine, at the time of initial placements wherein children and their siblings are separated through placements in foster, pre-adoptive, or adoptive care, that such visitation rights be implemented through a schedule of visitations or supervised visitations to be arranged and monitored through the appropriate public or private agency, and with the participation of the foster, pre-adoptive or adoptive parents, or extended family members, and other parties who are relevant to the preservation of sibling relationships and visitation rights. Periodic reviews shall be conducted, so as to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of the visitations between siblings placed in care.

  B. The department may accept from parents voluntary surrender of custody of their children under eighteen years for purposes of giving consent for adoption under the same conditions as noted in paragraph A of this section.

  C. The department may seek and shall accept on order of a probate court the responsibility for a child under 18 years of age who is without proper guardianship due to death, unavailability, incapacity or unfitness of the parent or guardian or on the consent of the parent or parents. Such responsibility shall include the right to: determine the child's abode, medical care and education; control visits to the child; give consent to enlistments, marriages and other contracts requiring parental consent and to consent to adoption only when it is expressly included in the order of the court. In making an order, the probate court shall consider the provisions of section 29C and shall make the written certification and determinations required by said section 29C. If a child is in the care of the department of mental health or the department of mental retardation, the responsibility enumerated above and all rights therein contained shall continue in the department. The department shall continue to have responsibility for a mentally retarded person, notwithstanding the fact that such person has reached the age of 18, if the department has accepted responsibility for such person prior to his reaching the age of 18 and such person has been declared to be legally incompetent. Responsibility shall continue in the department until such person shall be declared to be no longer legally incompetent.

  Whenever the child is placed in family foster care, the court shall ensure that grandparents, upon their request, have access to reasonable visitation rights with the child who is the subject of the petition and that the department establish a schedule for such visitation unless it is determined by the court or the department that such visitation is not in the child's best interests. In determining the best interests of the child the court or the department shall consider the goal of the service plan and the relationship between the grandparents and the child's parents or legal guardian. Grandparents who are denied the right to visit with said child may appeal a denial by the department through the department's fair hearing process. The department may establish reasonable conditions governing grandparents visitation, including but not limited to requiring that the grandparents be restrained from revealing the whereabouts of the child's placement.

  D. The department shall accept on commitment from any division of the juvenile court department any child under eighteen years of age declared in need of foster care under section twenty-six or to be a child in need of services under section thirty-nine G.

  E. Any child under eighteen years who is left in any place and who is seemingly without a parent or legal guardian available shall be immediately reported to the department, which shall proceed to arrange care for such child temporarily and shall forthwith cause search to be made for parent or guardian. If parent or guardian cannot be found or is unable or refuses to make suitable provisions for the child, the department shall make such lawful provision as seems for the best interest of such child within the provisions of this chapter.

  F. If the department has in its care a child whose parent or parents have consented to his adoption and the department has been unable to place such child in an adoptive home within sixty days of the receipt of such consent, it shall so notify all children's foster care agencies in the commonwealth licensed to place children for adoption. Said notice shall request that each such agency attempt to find an adoptive home for such child. If one of said agencies locates an adoptive home for such child the department shall cooperate with such agency in the placement of the child in such home and in the supervision of the placement during the one year waiting period. Any person in whose home such child has been placed by the division shall also be informed by the department if such child has become eligible for adoption, and such person may request consideration as a prospective adoptive parent.

  G. A temporary shelter care facility program or a group care facility, licensed under the provisions of chapter twenty-eight A, may, for a seventy-two-hour period, provide temporary shelter to a child under eighteen without parental consent, provided that the child's welfare would be endangered if such shelter were not immediately provided. At the expiration of such seventy-two-hour period, the licensee shall (1) secure the consent of parent or guardian to continued custody and care, (2) refer the child to the department for custody and care, or (3) refuse to provide continued care and custody to said child.

  H. The department may pay a sum not exceeding eleven hundred dollars for the funeral and burial of a child in its care provided that the cost of funeral and burial does not exceed fifteen hundred dollars and there are insufficient resources to pay for the cost of such funeral and burial. Any resources of the child shall be deducted from the maximum cost of the funeral and burial allowable hereunder and the difference, subject to the limitation set forth in this paragraph, shall be paid by the department.

  Whenever a child is placed in a foster home, or is transferred from one foster home to another, or from a state facility for the care of children to a foster home, a completed child profile form shall precede or accompany the child to the foster home.

  In the case of an emergency placement, such child profile form shall be received by the foster parents from the department, the department of youth services, the department of mental health, other departments of the commonwealth responsible for the placement of foster children, or placement agency within ten days of the child's placement in the foster home. At the time of an emergency placement, the department, the department of youth services, the department of mental health, other departments of the commonwealth responsible for the placement of foster children, or placement agency shall provide to the foster parents, in verbal or written form, a brief statement describing the child's outstanding problem behaviors and mental and emotional problems.

  The department shall develop a child profile form which shall be used by all other departments of the commonwealth or placement agencies and which shall contain the child profile and any other relevant information necessary to the care, well-being, protection, and parenting of the child by the foster parents. Said child profile shall contain, but not be limited to, a history of the child's previous placements and reasons for placement changes; a history of the child's problem behaviors and mental and emotional problems; educational status and school related problem behaviors, and any other psychological, educational, medical, and health information necessary.

  The child profile form shall immediately be prepared by the department of the commonwealth which is granted care and custody of the child at the time such care and custody is granted.

  The department may continue to have the responsibility for any person provided for in this section under twenty-one years for the purposes of specific educational or rehabilitative programs, under conditions agreed upon by both the department and such person and terminable by either.

[ Seventh paragraph of subsection H effective until December 8, 2005. For text effective December 8, 2005, see below.]

  The department shall obtain and provide to the IV-D agency, as set forth in chapter one hundred and nineteen A, an assignment of support rights on behalf of each child receiving foster care maintenance payments pursuant to Title IV, Part E, of the Social Security Act, including, but not limited to the following information: the child's name, date of birth, place of birth, Social Security number, address and benefit level and, if known, each parent's name, date of birth, place of birth, Social Security number, most recent address and most recent employer. The department shall notify said IV-D agency forthwith when a child for whom support is collected no longer receives foster care maintenance payments pursuant to Title IV, Part E, of the Social Security Act.

[ Seventh paragraph of subsection H as amended by 2005, 163, Sec. 40 effective December 8, 2005. For text effective until December 8, 2005, see above.]

  The department shall obtain and provide to the IV-D agency, as set forth in chapter 119A, an assignment of support rights on behalf of each child receiving foster care maintenance payments pursuant to Title IV, Part E, of the Social Security Act. The department shall be subrogated to the rights of each such child and shall obtain and provide to the IV-D agency information that may be reasonably necessary to enforce the department's right, including, but not limited to the following information: the child's name, date of birth, place of birth, Social Security number, address and benefit level and, if known, each parent's name, date of birth, place of birth, Social Security number, most recent address and most recent employer. The department shall notify said IV-D agency forthwith when a child whose rights to support are subrogated no longer receives foster care maintenance payments pursuant to Title IV, Part E, of the Social Security Act.