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Welf. & Inst. Code, § 16501.02 · Chapter 5. State Child Welfare Services

Welf. & Inst. Code, § 16501.02

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) For purposes of this section, the following definitions shall apply:

(1) “Alternative care” means care and supervision of more than 24 consecutive hours, but no more than 72 consecutive hours unless the foster child’s social worker or probation officer provides prior approval.

(2) “Alternative caregiver” means a person who is at least 18 years of age and provides alternative care for a foster child in either his or her home or the home of the caregiver.

(3) “Caregiver” means any licensed or certified foster parent, approved relative caregiver, or approved nonrelative extended family member, or approved resource family.

(4) “Reasonable and prudent parent” or “reasonable and prudent parent standard” has the same meaning as set forth in subdivision (c) of Section 362.05.

(b) A caregiver may arrange for occasional alternative care of his or her foster child and allow an alternative caregiver to provide care and supervision to the foster child, unless prohibited by the foster child’s social worker or probation officer or court order.

(c) A caregiver shall use a reasonable and prudent parent standard in determining and selecting an appropriate alternative caregiver.

(d) A caregiver shall endeavor to provide an alternative caregiver with all of the following information before leaving the foster child for purposes of alternative care:

(1) Information about the foster child’s emotional, behavioral, medical, or physical conditions, if any, necessary to provide care for the foster child during the time the foster child is being supervised by the alternative caregiver.

(2) Any medication that should be administered to the foster child during the time the foster child is being supervised by the alternative caregiver.

(3) Emergency contact information that is valid during the time the foster child is being supervised by the alternative caregiver.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 2018, Ch. 910, Sec. 43. (AB 1930) Effective January 1, 2019.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=WIC&sectionNum=16501.02.
Text hash
sha256 57e5923300dfb915ba9d5b6b03fec6f0b1bf1d50792d41678c9438db59e99bb8
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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