On Tuesday, November 12, the University Based Child and Family Policy Consortium held a webinar, “Partnering to Serve Pregnant and Parenting Youth in Foster Care in Illinois,” explained the results of the Healthy Families Illinois (HFI) Home Visiting Pilot Program. Speakers included Jaime Russell from Children’s Home and Aid and Amy Dworsky from the University
Last week S. 2777 and H.R. 4980, the Family First Transition Act was introduced in both houses with bipartisan support. CWLA has endorsed the legislation. The two identical bills will provide $500 million to all states and jurisdictions distributed under Title IV-B, part 1 formula. States will have two years (retroactive to October 1, 2019)
On Friday, November 1, HHS announced a “notice of exercise of enforcement discretion” along with an unpublished notice of proposed rulemaking to say that they would not enforce nondiscrimination rules or regulations except those specifically passed in law or ruled on by the Supreme Court. In effect, they won’t enforce the Obama era nondiscrimination rules
On Thursday, November 7, a federal appeals court announced that it would revisit the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) August decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that upheld ICWA as constitutional. The 5th Circuit rejected a lower court ruling that sought to strike down ICWA. The decision by the U.S.
On Wednesday, October 30, Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ) and Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA) introduced bipartisan and bicameral legislation, the Childhood Outcomes Need New Efficient Community Teams or CONNECT Act, H.R. 4911. This legislation would provide competitive grants that would enhance the collaboration between both the child welfare and the juvenile justice system to collaborate on
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019, the District of Columbia became the first state to have their Family First Prevention Plan, “Putting Families First in DC,” approved by the Children’s Bureau under the federal Family First Prevention Services Act. . DC was the first jurisdiction to submit their plan. Arkansas, Kentucky, and Utah plans are pending
Last month the Children’s Bureau provided guidance allowing states to use Title IV-E Administrative funding for the costs of evaluation of the new Family First Act prevention services. The Child Welfare Policy Manual in response to the question: May a title IV-E agency claim title IV-E administration for the costs of conducting a well-designed and
November is National Adoption Month—a time to recognize the importance of family and lift up the voices of youth in foster care. This National Adoption Month, we’re joining the Every Child Deserves a Family campaign to advocate for an end to discrimination in child welfare. Too often, youth in care are denied loving, identity-affirming homes
Last week we noted that the Children’s Bureau released the latest history of the Adoption and Legal Guardianship Incentives Payment Program—Earnings History by State. The table also shows the state awards for FY 2019. A few days later, the Bureau published the individual categories of awards for each state. The individual categories of awards that
On Thursday, October 24, 2019 HHS released the 26th AFCARS Report indicating 3,788 fewer children in foster care in FY 2018 (437,283) from the 441,071 in FY 2017. The AFCARS reports are based on the number of children in the system as of the last day of the federal fiscal year, which is September 30,
