§ 9-28-117. Authority to obtain local criminal background checks
(a) Local law enforcement shall provide the Department of Human Services with criminal background information on persons who have applied to be a provisional foster home, a regular foster home, or an adoptive home for the department upon request from the department. (b) Local law enforcement shall provide the department with criminal background information on […]
§ 9-28-118. Training hours for employees
All division caseworkers, supervisors, and area directors shall have at least one (1) hour of annual training on issues related to: (1) Separation and placement; and (2) The grief and loss that children experience in foster care with multiple placements.
§ 9-28-119. Department of Human Services — Power to obtain information — Definitions
(a) As used in this section: (1) “Business” means any corporation, partnership, cable television company, association, individual, or utility company that is organized privately, as a cooperative, or as a quasi-public entity, and labor or other organization maintaining an office, doing business, or having a registered agent in the State of Arkansas; (2) “Financial entity” […]
§ 9-28-120. Public disclosure of information on deaths and maltreatment
(a) (1) The Department of Human Services shall place a notice on the department’s web page when a fatality or near fatality of a child is reported to the Child Abuse Hotline under the Child Maltreatment Act, § 12-18-101 et seq., within seventy-two (72) hours of receipt of a report from the hotline. (2) The […]
§ 9-28-106. Religious preference — Removal of barriers to inter-ethnic adoption
(a) The Department of Human Services and any other agency or entity that receives federal assistance and is involved in adoption or foster care placement shall not: (1) Discriminate on the basis of the race, color, or national origin of either the adoptive parent, foster parent, or the child involved; or (2) Delay the placement […]
§ 9-28-107. Notice when juvenile transferred to custody of department
(a) The Department of Human Services shall exercise due diligence to identify and provide notice to all adult grandparents, all parents of a sibling of the juvenile where the parent has legal custody of the sibling, and other adult relatives of a juvenile transferred to the custody of the department. (b) The notice provided under […]
§ 9-28-108. Placement of juveniles — Definitions
(a) As used in this section: (1) “Fictive kin” means a person selected by the Division of Children and Family Services who: (A) Is not related to a child by blood or marriage; and (B) Has a strong, positive, and emotional tie or role in the: (i) Child’s life; or (ii) Child’s parent’s life if […]
§ 9-28-109. Notice of move in foster care placement
(a) The policy of the State of Arkansas is that each child placed in the custody of the Department of Human Services should have stable placements. (b) (1) To reduce the number of placements of children in foster care, if a foster parent requests a foster child be removed from his or her home at […]
§ 9-28-110. Smoking in the presence of foster children
The Department of Human Services shall not place or permit a child to remain in a foster home, unless it is in the best interest of the child to be placed in or to remain in the foster home, if the foster parent: (1) Or any other member of the household smokes; or (2) Allows […]
§ 9-28-111. Case plans — Definition
(a) The Department of Human Services shall be responsible for developing case plans in all dependency-neglect cases and in family-in-need-of-services cases when custody is transferred to the department under § 9-27-328. The case plan shall be: (1) (A) Developed in consultation with the juvenile’s parent, guardian, or custodian and, if appropriate, the juvenile, the juvenile’s […]