A requirement that termination of parental rights petitions be filed with respect to children under eight years of age, and certain children eight years of age or over, who have been placed outside the home for six months

Current law, subject to certain exceptions, requires the filing of a TPR petition with respect to a child who has been placed in a foster home, group home, nonsecured residential care center for children and youth, or shelter care facility for 15 of the most recent 22 months, not including any period during which the child was a runaway from that placement or the first six months of a trial home visit. A person responsible for filing TPR petitions, however, is not required to file a TPR petition with respect to such a child if the child is being cared for by a relative, if a TPR is not in the best interests of the child, if the agency primarily responsible for providing services to the child and the family is required to make reasonable efforts to make it possible for the child to return safely home and has not provided the services necessary for that safe return, or if grounds for TPR do not exist.

This bill, subject to the exceptions under current law, requires a TPR petition to be filed with respect to a child who has been placed outside of his or her home in any out-of-home placement for a cumulative total period of six months, not including any period during which the child was a runaway from the out-of-home placement or any period during which the child was returned to his or her home for a trial home visit, if any of the following applies:

1. The child was under eight years of age when he or she was placed outside of his or her home.

2. The child was eight years of age or over when he or she was placed outside of his or her home and the goal of the child's permanency plan, which is a plan designed to ensure that a child is reunified with his or her family whenever appropriate or that the child quickly attains a placement providing long-term stability, is placement for adoption with an adoptive parent or a proposed adoptive parent of a sibling who was under eight years of age when the sibling was placed outside of his or her home.

3. The child was eight years of age or over when he or she was placed outside of his or her home, and the child's permanency plan indicates that a safe and appropriate placement with a proposed adoptive parent is available for the child and that the child has expressed the wish to be adopted.