(1) The Department of Health and Human Services shall be the legal guardian of all children committed to it. The department shall afford temporary care and shall use special diligence to provide suitable homes for such children. The department is authorized to place such children in suitable families for adoption or, in the discretion of the department, on a written contract.
(2) The contract shall provide (a) for the children's education in the public schools or otherwise, (b) for teaching them some useful occupation, and (c) for kind and proper treatment as members of the family in which they are placed.
(3) Whenever any child who has been committed to the Department of Health and Human Services becomes self-supporting, the director shall declare that fact and the guardianship of the department shall cease. Thereafter the child shall be entitled to his or her own earnings. Guardianship of and services by the department shall never extend beyond the age of majority, except that services by the department to a child shall continue until the child reaches the age of twenty-one if the child is a student regularly attending a school, college, or university or regularly attending a course of vocational or technical training designed to prepare such child for gainful employment.
(4) Whenever the parents of any ward, whose parental rights have not been terminated, have become able to support and educate their child, the department shall restore the child to his or her parents if the home of such parents would be a suitable home. The guardianship of the department shall then cease.
(5) Whenever permanent free homes for the children cannot be obtained, the department shall have the authority to provide and pay for the maintenance of the children in
private families, boarding homes, or institutions for care of children.
(6) The Department of Health and Human Services Finance and Support shall provide and pay for liability and property damage insurance for participants in a family foster parent program who have been licensed or approved to provide care or who have been licensed or approved by a legally established Indian tribal council operating within the state to provide care.
