Out-of-home juvenile placement measure passed

Senators passed a bill May 21 concerning collection and management of information about juveniles in out-of-home care.

Introduced by Lincoln Sen. Kathy Campbell, LB265 makes a number of changes relating to juveniles and child welfare, including:
• establishing a pilot project to demonstrate how state agency data can be used by state offices to oversee juveniles in out-of-home care;
• permitting the Foster Care Review Office or local board to participate in a foster care placement dispositional hearing; and
• defining a young adult as older than 18 but younger than 21.

Another provision of the bill requires that if a court orders that a juvenile’s record be sealed, all information in the record is to be deemed never to have occurred. A subject of a sealed record is permitted to respond to any public inquiry as if the offense resulting in the record never occurred. The bill also specifies who may access the sealed record and the purposes for which the record may be inspected.

Provisions of Omaha Sen. Bob Krist’s LB13 set aside 10 percent of the annual General Fund appropriation for the Community-based Juvenile Services Aid Program to develop data and evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The provisions require recipients to submit annual reports to the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Juvenile Justice Institute.

The bill passed with an emergency clause 45-1.