Report 2007-124 Recommendation 7 Responses
Report 2007-124: Safely Surrendered Baby Law: Stronger Guidance From the State and Better Information for the Public Could Enhance Its Impact (Release Date: April 2008)
Recommendation #7 To: Social Services, Department of
To continue promoting awareness of the safe-surrender law in the most cost-effective manner, Social Services should work with the counties to leverage models and tools currently in use in California, such as existing middle and high school curricula and translated materials.
Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From January 2011
Social Services currently has sufficient materials to promote the safe surrender of babies. We updated our existing materials to include the new statewide toll free number. We received a number of requests for the updated materials from counties and others, and the warehouse has actually run out of copies of some items. We have requested more copies be printed, which will be in stock shortly. Social Services contacted the Santa Clara County child welfare agency and obtained outreach brochures drafted in Chinese and Vietnamese. Social Services determined these met the criteria for official distribution, but unfortunately the cost for our staff to translate existing outreach materials far surpassed current department resources. (Any official Social Services publication is required to be processed by our Language Services Bureau, as per the requirements of California Government Code, Section 7290). Should additional language translation services become available, Social Services is interested in possibly utilizing such materials. AB 1983 was signed into law on September 30, 2010 and creates a new fund using tax check off donations that can be used for outreach and educational materials related to safely surrendered babies. We will determine if we can used the funds from the check off for this translation service in order to expand the amount of materials in languages other than English and Spanish. (2010-041, p. 56)
California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented
All Recommendations in 2007-124
Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.