MODEL SCHOOL WELLNESS - This act establishes a "Model School Wellness Program" within DESE to establish school-based pilot programs that focus on encouraging students to establish and maintain healthy lifestyles, as defined in the act.

School districts may apply for one-year grants for school year 2005-2006. The department shall establish selection criteria and methods for distribution of funds to school districts applying for such funds. The department shall promulgate rules in order to implement the program.

A school district that receives a grant under this section shall use the funds to plan and implement the program in a diverse sampling of schools in each district. The programs shall address students' academic success as well as health concerns, and encourage links between the school and home settings to promote active healthy lifestyles across the students' learning environments. The tobacco prevention initiative shall focus on grades four and five to target students before they transition into middle grades. The obesity prevention programs will cover sequential wellness education across grades kindergarten through fifth grades.

The wellness pilot program sunsets on August 28, 2011.

ASSESSMENT AND INTENSIVE TREATMENT SERVICES FOR CHILDREN - This act adds a definition to the Foster Care Act, in section 210.110, for assessment and intensive treatment services for children under ten years old.

The children's division of the department of social services shall develop an approach which will recognize and treat the specific needs of at-risk and abused or neglected children under the age of ten. The assessment shall be a broad physical, developmental, and mental health screening to be completed within thirty days of a child's entry into custody and every six months thereafter as long as the child remains in care.

The screening battery shall be performed by licensed mental health professionals and pediatricians familiar with the effects of abuse and neglect on young children. Such treatment services may include in-home services, out of home placement, intensive twenty-four hour treatment services, family counseling, parenting training and other best practices.

For those children whose screening indicate an area of concern, there shall be a comprehensive, in-depth health, pycho-diagnostic, or developmental assessment within sixty days of entry into custody.

A provision was added to Section 210.212, dealing with case management services for children in the foster care and child protection system, which references the assessments and intensive treatment services for children under ten years old defined in Section 210.110.

PRIVATE CONTRACTOR IMMUNITY -This act also provides that a private contractor who provides services to children and families as directed by the children's division within the Department of Social Services and who receives state moneys from the division or the department shall have qualified immunity from civil liability for providing such services when the child is not in the physical care of such private contractor. The qualified immunity to the private contractor will be the same immunity from civil liability granted to the children's division when the division or department directly provides such services. However, this immunity shall not apply if a private contractor knowingly violates a stated or written policy of the division, department or division rule, or any state law directly related to the child abuse and neglect activities of the division or any local ordinance relating to the safety condition of the property.

MINORS IN THE CUSTODY OF THEIR PARENTS - This act prohibits a child, who has been taken into the custody of the state or the jurisdiction of a juvenile court, from being reunited with a parent or being placed back in the home in which the parent or any person living in the home has been found guilty or plead guilty to certain sexual offenses or offenses against the family when a child was the victim. The Child Support Division may exercise discretion in the placement of a child in a home with a parent when the parent or person living in the home has been found guilty or plead guilty for similar offenses in another state.

This act prohibits a court from awarding custody or unsupervised visitation, granting visitation rights, or modifying an order granting or denying visitation rights to a parent or non-custodial parent if the parent or a person living with the parent has been found guilty or plead guilty to certain sexual offenses or offenses against the family when a child was the victim.

The court may exercise discretion in the placement of a child in a home or granting, awarding or modifying of visitation rights with a parent when the parent or person living in the home has been found guilty or plead guilty for similar offenses in another state.

This act removes the provision stating that the child may be returned to the care and custody of a non-offending parent so long as the parent does not have a full order of protection entered against such parent.

ADRIANE CROUSE