The Capacity Building Center for States hosted a webinar on September 13th entitled “Keeping Youth at the Center of Kinship Care Practice: Prioritizing Relationships, Community, and Culture”. They brought together three different presenting groups from California, Connecticut, and Alaska to talk about the benefits of kinship care and the different navigator programs that they have
On July 13th, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) designed to improve affordability and access to care options for families and promote financial stability of child care providers participating in the federal child care subsidy program under the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). This
On September 12th, 2023 the U.S. Department of Education released a “Dear Colleague Letter” to Chief State School Officers asking States to modify their administrative procedures to expedite spending American Rescue Plan Homeless Children and Youth (ARP-HCY) funds. These funds, that must be obligated by September of 2024, provide supports for students experiencing homelessness who
The Senate returned from recess last Monday, September 4, 2023, and the House will return to Washington, D.C. this week to resume work on the numerous legislative priorities before them, the most pressing of which is finding a way to fund the government past September 30th, the end of the fiscal year. With just about
On August 30, 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a letter to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands requiring them to determine whether they have an eligibility systems issue that could cause people, especially children, to be disenrolled from Medicaid or the Children’s
On July 25th, the Biden Administration and U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury released proposed rulemaking for the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) with the goal of holding private insurance companies accountable for mental health and addiction services coverage and increasing parity between physical health coverage and mental
On July 20, 2023, the Children’s Bureau Learning & Coordination Center hosted a webinar titled “Redressing the Wrongs of History,” which highlighted the ways the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) promotes the well-being of Native children and families in the aftermath of generations of government policies designed to separate them. Host Kimee Wind-Hummingbird of the
On July 18th, 2023, the Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services held a hearing, “Why Expanding Medicaid to DACA Recipients Will Exacerbate the Border Crisis” to discuss the potential impacts on Medicaid expansion. Chairwoman McClain (R-MI) argued Medicaid expansion to DACA recipients is illegal, not supported by the American people, and high costs using
The Children’s Bureau and Learning Coordination Center hosted a webinar on June 21, 2023, titled “Supporting Children and Youth Coping with Unresolved Loss.” The panel focused on ambiguous loss, defined as when a parent is physically or emotionally absent in a child’s life due to foster care, incarceration, substance use disorders, or other physical or
On June 13, 2023, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing titled “Examining the Policies and Priorities of the Department of Health and Human Services.” Committee members asked Secretary Becerra of the Department of Health and Human Services questions about children’s health-related to gender-affirming care and unaccompanied children at the border.
