Assemblymember Mark Stone

Legislation pending in the California Legislature would permanently bar child welfare and juvenile justice authorities from sending troubled youth to out-of-state residential facilities.

In 2015, California Assemblymember Mark Stone (D) introduced legislation that launched the state’s Continuum of Care Reform (CCR), an overhaul of the state’s foster care system. Under 2015’s Assembly Bill (AB) 403, Stone put into place the foundation of the reforms: dramatically scaling back a reliance on group homes as placements for children in the foster care system, and seeking to place more children in the homes of relatives and foster parents.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation yesterday that aims to drastically reduce the number of children placed in group homes as well as the length of time they spend in such placements, part of a package of reforms that will reshape the state’s foster care system.

“We’re losing ourselves to what the world says we are.” These words, spoken softly by a character named Addie in the movie Know How, describe one of the common realities of life in foster care that the film sets out to change.