On November 9, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report they had provided to the Senate Finance committee in October. The report: HHS Could Do More to Support States’ Efforts to Keep Children in Family-Based Care examined eight states including Washington, Kansas, New Jersey, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Connecticut and Colorado by interviewing 41 stakeholders
On November 17, Senator Tom Kane (D-VA) introduced S 2289, the Family Unification, Preservation and Modernization Act, a bill that would extend the Family Unification Program or “FUP.” The 1990, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program provides housing vouchers to families involved with the child welfare system. In 2000, Congress extended this program
On Friday, September 23, New York City was the setting for an adoption symposium called “Broken Adoption Beyond Permanency: Challenges for Foster Youth.” The one-day session sponsored by the Children’s Law Center focused on strategies to address those adoptions from foster care that “fail” or as they labeled such instance, “broken adoptions.” In other words,
Last week CWLA sent a letter to members of the Senate Finance Committee reminding Senate Finance Committee members to include The Family-Based Foster Care Services Act: HR.835/S.429 in future child welfare reform legislation. The leadership of the Finance Committee is attempting to present legislation for debate in Committee at some point in the next two
On Monday, October 5 the American Youth Policy Forum sponsored a briefing that focused on how state and local child welfare programs address the challenge of converting research to inform policy and practice decisions in the child welfare field. The research was funded by the W. T. Grant Foundation in an effort to improve the
On October 5, Congresswoman Karen Bass (D-CA) introduced along with Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), HR 3641 the “Health Insurance for Former Foster Youth Act of2015.” The bill mirrors Senate legislation, S 1852, by Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) that would fix what most agree is a technical hang-up in the ACA. The ACA requires states, regardless
New annual data from HHS indicates that the number of children in foster care increased by more than 14,000 children in federal fiscal year 2014. According to the annual HHS report, the number of children in foster care increased to 415,129 compared to 400,989 in 2013. The totals represent the number of children in out-of-home
This past week Montana Governor Steve Bullock announced a plan to improve child protection and child welfare services. The announcement comes against a backdrop of increasing state foster care numbers and a threat by HHS to cut-off CAPTA funds if the state does not come into compliance with that law’s federal requirements on disclosure of
The Child Welfare and Supportive Housing Resource Center brought together participants from five place-based initiative sites to discuss the progress of their new efforts. The pilots are attempting to better assist child welfare involved families through an intensive approach that combines supportive housing and human services in an effort to keep families together. The five
With Congress likely to be discussing appropriations into December there is time for a number of issues and in some cases Congress will have to act. One possibility that was mentioned in early August by Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) is a mark-up of child welfare legislation. That is still uncertain and contingent on
