AGO 98029.

• Court: Nebraska

Nebraska Attorney General Opinions 1998. AGO 98029. DATE: July 13, 1998SUBJECT: Authority of the Foster Care Review Board to conduct visits and inspections of foster care group homes and methods to enforce such authorityREQUESTED BY: State Foster Care Review BoardWRITTEN BY: Don Stenberg, Attorney General David Tarvin, Assistant Attorney General You have requested our opinion as to whether Neb. Rev. Stat. § 43-1303(6) allows the State Foster Care Review Board ("Board") to conduct visits and inspections of foster care group homes. Specifically, the Board is seeking access to the OMNI group home facilities ("OMNI"). According to your letter, OMNI has contracted with the Department of Health and Human Services ("Department") to provide a therapeutic environment for a number of foster care children. Recently, the Board has received a number of allegations that OMNI has provided improper care for many of the youth in their homes. The Board wishes to tour OMNI's facilities to see if the allegations are true and to ensure that the needs of the children in OMNI's care are being met. OMNI has refused to allow the Board to tour any of OMNI's facilities and has stated that the Board must schedule in advance any visit the Board wishes to make. We conclude that § 43-1303 does give the Board the authority to conduct visits and inspections of these group homes, and that any group homes must allow such inspections. We also conclude that the Board may conduct such visits and inspections unannounced. You also ask how the Board should proceed to enforce its authority under this statute. We conclude that the proper method of enforcement is to request that the Department initiate a license suspension or revocation of any group home that does not comply with § 43-1303. DISCUSSION The Board was created in 1982 by the passage of LB 714, the Foster Care Review Act. The purpose of the Act was to provide for periodic review of "cases of children who have resided in public or private foster care for a period of more than six months to determine what efforts have been made by the supervising agency or child-caring institution to carry out the plan for rehabilitation or permanent placement." Introducer's Statement of Intent on LB 714, 87th Neb. Leg., 2nd Sess. (January 19, 1982). As stated by this office in a previous opinion, the goals of the Act were to correct...