§ 442. Child care review service; establishment, operations and
procedure. 1. The department, in consultation with the advisory
committee, shall establish and operate a child care review service to
accomplish the purposes of this title, for all children who are in the
care of an authorized agency and shall make such regulations as are
appropriate to implement this title.

2. The service shall be implemented with respect to all children under
the age of twenty-one years for whom an authorized agency is providing
foster care as defined in subdivision (c) of section one thousand
eighty-seven of the family court act and for whom an application is
pending to an authorized agency for foster care.

3. The department is authorized to enter into agreements with any
person, firm, organization or association for the whole or any part of
the design or operation of the service as described in this title. Any
such agreements shall specify that such person, firm, corporation or
association shall safeguard the confidentiality of information received
or maintained by the service, in the same manner, and will remain
subject to the same confidentiality requirements, as the department. In
addition, any such agreement shall require such person, firm,
corporation or association to comply with other applicable federal and
state laws protecting the confidentiality of the information received or
maintained by the service.

4. The service shall collect, maintain, update, and distribute, as
provided in this title, information from each authorized agency to
further the purpose of this title.

5. The service may request from any authorized agency, and such agency
shall submit to the service all information, including updating of
information, in the form and manner and at such times as the department
may require that is appropriate to the purposes and operation of the
service.

6. Information to be submitted to or collected by the service,
pursuant to subdivisions four and five, shall, to the extent possible,
be in compatible form so as to facilitate the making of public policy
decisions relating to child care programs supported by public funds and
administered by various state, local and voluntary agencies.

7. In designing the service, the department, in consultation with the
advisory committee, shall review all information reporting forms and
financial claims forms, and shall make every effort to consolidate and,
where appropriate, eliminate duplicative claiming and information
reporting forms in order to develop uniform statewide claiming forms and
information reporting forms.

8. Subject to regulations of the department the service shall:

(a) prepare and make available on a regular basis to each authorized
agency such data as they may require to meet the purposes of this title;

(b) issue regular reports setting forth aggregate statewide and local
statistical data with appropriate analyses, but not including individual
identifying information; and

(c) issue reports as to the capabilities of the service and the types
of information maintained by the service.

9. The department in consultation with the advisory committee shall
prepare and submit an annual report to the governor and the legislature
as part of the annual report required to be filed prior to the fifteenth
day of December of each year by subdivision (d) of section seventeen of
this chapter on its progress in the development and operation of the
service, including any significant problems encountered or anticipated
in the design and operation of the service and any recommendations for
administrative or legislative changes that would further the purposes of
this title.

10. The state child care review service established pursuant to this
title shall design and implement a system to:

(a) monitor all financial claims made by social services districts for
each child in foster care and child and family in receipt of preventive
services pursuant to title four of this chapter;

(b) compile and maintain a cumulative record of information with
respect to actions taken on behalf of each individual child throughout
his or her length of stay in foster care;

(c) compile and maintain information on actions taken by local social
services districts to initiate judicial proceedings as provided by
section three hundred fifty-eight-a of this chapter and to comply with
judicial orders made pursuant to section one thousand eighty-nine of the
family court act, to refer legally free children to the state adoption
service pursuant to section three hundred seventy-two-c of this chapter,
and to comply with the provisions of section four hundred nine-e of this
article and the regulations of the office of children and family
services promulgated thereunder; and

(e) compile and maintain comparative data for authorized agencies
including, but not limited to, characteristics and numbers of children
entering care and their families, admissions practices, delineated
reasons for initial and continued placement or provision of preventive
or child protective services, length of stay in care, length of time in
receipt of preventive services or child protective services, foster care
reentry rates, number of children discharged to parents and relatives,
the characteristics, numbers and rates of children leaving foster care
through adoption, costs of care and preventive services and other
information indicative of authorized agency performance.