§ 39-1202 — DEFINITIONS

For the purposes of this chapter:
(1) "Board" means the Idaho board of health and welfare.
(2) "Child care" means that care, control, supervision or maintenance of children for twenty-four (24) hours a day provided as an alternative to parental care.
(3) "Child" means an individual less than eighteen (18) years of age who is not enrolled in an institution of higher education.
(4) "Children’s agency" means a person who operates a business for the placement of children in foster homes or for adoption in a permanent home and who does not provide child care as part of that business. Children’s agency does not include a licensed attorney or physician assisting or providing natural and adoptive parents with legal services or medical services necessary to initiate and complete adoptive placements.
(5) "Children’s camp" means a program of child care at a location away from the child’s home that is primarily recreational and includes the overnight accommodation of the child and is not intended to provide treatment, therapy or rehabilitation for the child.
(6) "Children’s institution" means a person who operates a residential facility for children not related to that person, if that person is an individual, for the purpose of providing child care. Children’s institutions include, but are not limited to, foster homes, maternity homes, children’s therapeutic outdoor programs, or any facilities providing treatment, therapy or rehabilitation for children. Children’s institutions do not include: (a) facilities that provide only daycare as defined in chapter 11, title 39, Idaho Code; (b) facilities and agencies including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, intermediate care facilities, and intermediate care facilities for people with intellectual disabilities licensed pursuant to chapter 13, title 39, Idaho Code; (c) day schools; (d) individuals acting in an advisory capacity, counseling a child in a religious context, and providing no child care associated with the advice; or (e) the occasional or irregular care of a neighbor’s, relative’s or friend’s child or children by a person not ordinarily engaged in child care.
(7) "Children’s residential care facility" means a children’s institution, excluding:
(a) Foster homes;
(b) Residential schools;
(c) Children’s camps.
No facility expressly excluded from the definition of a children’s institution is included within the definition of a children’s residential care facility.
(8) "Children’s therapeutic outdoor program" is a program designed to provide behavioral, substance abuse, or mental health services to minors in an outdoor setting. This does not include children’s camps, church camps, or other outdoor programs primarily designed to be educational or recreational, such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H or sports camps.
(9) "Continued care" means the ongoing placement of an individual in a foster home, children’s residential care facility, or transitional living placement who reaches the age of eighteen (18) years but is less than twenty-three (23) years of age.
(10) "Day school" means a public, private, parochial or secular facility offering an educational program in which the children leave the facility each day at the conclusion of the academic, vocational or school-supervised activities.
(11) "Department" means the state department of health and welfare.
(12) "Director" means the director of the department of health and welfare.
(13) "Foster care" means child care by a person not related to the child, in lieu of parental care, in a foster home.
(14) "Foster home" means a home that accepts, for any period of time, with or without compensation, one (1) or more children who are not related to the foster parent as members of the household for the purpose of providing substitute parental care.
(15) "Group care" means foster care of a number of children for whom child care in a family setting is not available or appropriate in a dormitory or cottage type setting characterized by activities and discipline of a more regimented and less formal nature than found in a family setting.
(16) "Juvenile detention" is as defined in section 20-502 (8), Idaho Code, of the juvenile corrections act.
(17) "Juvenile detention center" means a facility established pursuant to sections 20-517 and 20-518, Idaho Code.
(18) "Person" includes any individual, group of individuals, association, partnership, limited liability company or corporation.
(19) "Placement" means finding a suitable licensed foster home or suitable adoptive home for a child and completing the arrangements for a child to be accepted into and adjusted to such home.
(20) "Relative" means a child’s grandparent, great grandparent, aunt, great aunt, uncle, great uncle, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, first cousin, sibling or half-sibling.
(21) "Representative" means an employee of the state department of health and welfare.
(22) "Residential facility" means any facility where child care is provided, as defined in this section, and that provides day and night accommodation.
(23) "Residential school" means a residential facility for children that:
(a) Provides a planned, scheduled, regular, academic or vocational school program for students in the elementary, middle or secondary grades as defined in section 33-1001, Idaho Code; and
(b) Provides services substantially comparable to those provided in nonresidential public schools where the primary purpose is the education and academic pursuits of the students; and
(c) Does not seek, receive or enroll students for treatment of such special needs as substance abuse, mental illness, emotional disturbance, developmental disability or intellectual disability; and
(d) Is not:
(i) A college or university;
(ii) A children’s camp as defined in this section; or
(iii) A public or private day school in which the children leave the facility each day at the conclusion of the academic, vocational or school-supervised activities.
(24) "Transitional living" means living arrangements and aftercare services for children, or as continued care, to gain experience living on their own in a supportive and supervised environment prior to emancipation.

Legislative History

[(39-1202) 39-1209, added 1963, ch. 320, sec. 2, p. 901; am. 1972, ch. 196, sec. 4, p. 483; am. 1974, ch. 23, sec. 113, p. 633; am. 1987, ch. 56, sec. 2, p. 92; am. 1990, ch. 214, sec. 1, p. 564; am. and redesig. 1990, ch. 215, sec. 3, p. 569; am. 2001, ch. 93, sec. 5, p. 236; am. 2002, ch. 219, sec. 1, p. 599; am. 2010, ch. 147, sec. 4, p. 319; am. 2010, ch. 235, sec. 22, p. 560; am. 2021, ch. 18, sec. 3, p. 44; am. 2022, ch. 23, sec. 3, p. 67; am. 2025, ch. 142, sec. 2, p. 721.]