§1403. Definitions

As used in this Chapter, the following definitions shall apply unless the context clearly states otherwise:

(1) "Child" means a person who has not reached age eighteen or otherwise been legally emancipated. The words "child" and "children" are used interchangeably in this Chapter.

(2) "Child-placing agency" means any institution, society, agency, corporation, facility, person or persons, or any other group engaged in placing children in foster care or with substitute parents for temporary care or for adoption, or engaged in assisting or facilitating the adoption of children, or engaged in placing youth in transitional placing programs, but shall not mean a person who may occasionally refer children for temporary care.

(3) "Department" means the Department of Children and Family Services.

(4) "License type" means the type of license applied for or held by a specialized provider, which shall include Type I and Type IV licenses.

(5) "Maternity home" means any place or facility in which any institution, society, agency, corporation, person or persons, or any other group regularly receives and provides necessary services for children before, during, and immediately following birth. This definition shall not include any place or facility which receives and provides services for women who receive maternity care in the home of a relative within the sixth degree of kindred, computed according to civil law, or general or special hospitals in which maternity treatment and care is part of the medical services performed and the care of children only brief and incidental.

(6) "Related" or "relative" means a natural or adopted child or grandchild of the caregiver or a child in the legal custody of the caregiver.

(7) "Residential home" means any place, facility, or home operated by any institution, society, agency, corporation, person or persons, or any other group to provide full-time care, twenty-four hours per day, for more than four children, who may remain at the facility in accordance with R.S. 46:1403.1, who are not related to the operators and, except as provided in this Paragraph, whose parents or guardians are not residents of the same facility, with or without transfer of custody. However, a child of a person who is a resident of a residential home may reside with that parent at the same facility.

(8) "Specialized provider" means a child-placing agency, maternity home, or residential home.

(9) "Type I license" means a license held by a residential home that is owned or operated by a church or religious organization that does not wish to be licensed as a Type IV center. Nothing herein shall be construed to require a children's religious ministry program operated by a church or other religious organization in accordance with R.S. 46:1429 to be licensed pursuant to this Chapter. "Type I license" also means a license held by a residential home holding a Class B license prior to the effective date of this Section.

(10) "Type IV license" means the license held by any publicly or privately owned specialized provider.

(11) "Youth" means a person not less than sixteen years of age nor older than twenty-one years of age.

Acts 1985, No. 286, §1; Acts 1987, No. 812, §1; Acts 1990, No. 351, §2, eff. July 10, 1990; Acts 1990 No. 901, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1991; Acts 1999, No. 1237, §1, eff. Sept. 1, 1999; Acts 2004, No. 915, §1; Acts 2009, No. 194, §2, eff. June 30, 2009; Acts 2010, No. 64, §1, eff. Oct. 1, 2010; Acts 2013, No. 179, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 2014; Acts 2014, No. 868, §5, eff. Oct. 1, 2014; Acts 2016, No. 502, §1.