The commission must create a local permanency planning system and build in rules for identifying children who need permanency plans, assigning responsibility, reporting placements, and using funds and local coordination groups.
Sec. 546.0206. IMPLEMENTATION SYSTEM: LOCAL PERMANENCY PLANNING SITES. The commission shall develop an implementation system that initially consists of four or more local sites and that is designed to coordinate planning for a permanent living arrangement and relationship for a child with a family. In developing the system, the commission shall: (1) include criteria to identify children who need permanency plans; (2) require the establishment of a permanency plan for each child who resides outside the child's family or for whom care or protection is sought in an institution; (3) include a process to determine the agency or entity responsible for developing and overseeing implementation of a child's permanency plan; (4) identify, blend, and use funds from all available sources to provide customized services and programs to implement a child's permanency plan; (5) clarify and expand the role of a local community resource coordination group in ensuring accountability for a child who resides in an institution or who is at risk of being placed in an institution; (6) require reporting of each placement or potential placement of a child in an institution or other living arrangement outside of the child's home; and (7) assign in each local permanency planning site area a single gatekeeper for all children in the area for whom placement in an institution through a state-funded program is sought with authority to ensure that: (A) family members of each child are aware of: (i) intensive services that could prevent placement of the child in an institution; and (ii) available placement options; and (B) permanency planning is initiated for each child. Added by Acts 2023, 88th Leg., R.S., Ch. 769 (H.B. 4611), Sec. 1.01, eff. April 1, 2025.