Purposes and intent; personnel standards and screening.

(1) The purposes of this chapter are:

(a) To provide judicial, nonjudicial, and other procedures to address the status offenses of children who are truant from school, run away from their caregivers, or exhibit ungovernable behavior by refusing to follow the household rules of their caregivers and engage in behavior that places the child at risk of harm; and to ensure due process through which children and other interested parties are assured fair hearings by a respectful and respected court and the recognition, protection, and enforcement of their constitutional and other legal rights.

(b) To provide for the care, safety, and protection of children in an environment that cultivates healthy social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development; to ensure the safety of children; and to promote the education, health, and well-being of all children under the state’s care.

(c) To provide for a needs assessment of the child’s needs, strengths, and family dynamics so that the most appropriate services can be provided in the most appropriate environment consistent with the community’s long-term need for public safety and the safety of the individual child, with consideration given to the education and overall well-being of the child.

(d) To preserve and strengthen the child’s family ties whenever possible; provide for temporary shelter placement of the child only when necessary for the child’s education, safety, and welfare and when other less restrictive alternatives have been exhausted; provide custody, care, and education; encourage self-discipline; and increase protective factors when the child is in temporary shelter placement.

(e) To ensure that the adjudication and disposition of a child alleged or found to be a child in need of services be exercised with appropriate discretion and in keeping with the seriousness of the misconduct and the need for services, and that all findings made under this chapter be based upon facts presented at a hearing that meets the constitutional standards of fundamental fairness and due process.

(f) To provide a court process through which school boards are able to access the court for the limited purpose of early truancy intervention for children, subject to compulsory education, who are not engaging in regular school attendance, and encourage school attendance by educating children and their families on the importance of regular school attendance and provide services to families to prevent the child’s pattern of truancy from becoming habitual.

(2) The department may contract with the Federal Government, other state departments and agencies, county and municipal governments and agencies, public and private agencies, and private individuals and corporations in carrying out the purposes of, and the responsibilities established in, this chapter.

(a) If the department contracts with a provider for any program for children, all personnel, including owners, operators, employees, and volunteers, in the facility must be of good moral character. The department and any agency providing services for the department must require that each contract entered into for services delivered on an appointment or intermittent basis by a provider that does or does not have regular custodial responsibility for children and each contract with a school for before or aftercare services must ensure that the owners, operators, and all personnel who have direct contact with children are of good moral character and must meet level 2 screening requirements as described in s. 435.04. A volunteer who assists on an intermittent basis for less than 10 hours per month need not be screened if a person who meets the screening requirement of this section is always present and has the volunteer in his or her line of sight.

(b) The department may grant exemptions from disqualification from working with children as provided in s. 435.07.

(c) Any shelter used for the placement of children under this chapter must be licensed by the Department of Children and Families.

(3) This chapter is to be liberally interpreted and construed in conformity with its declared purposes.