Two House Committees: the Oversite Committee and the Judiciary Committee held hearings last week on family separation at the border. As part of those hearings there were reports that a significant number of children have been subjected to child sexual abuse while being cared for as unaccompanied minors. Figures released indicated that HHS has received
Tessa Buttram and Nick Cervone On Thursday, February 28, 2019, Congressman Langevin (D-R) and the Congressional Caucus for Foster Youth held a briefing on “Unregulated Custody Transfers of Adopted Youth: Understanding and Preventing “Rehoming.” Panelists included Maureen Flatley, Former Ambassador Susan S. Jacobs, Department of State, Nhi Nguyen, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Trish Maskew, Department
Jay Williams As a follow-up to the historic passage of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 2018 (JJDPA), the Act-4-JJ Coalition held a Congressional briefing on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, to discuss next steps of implementation for JJDPA and what steps can be taken to improve the still inadequate juvenile justice system further.
Last week Child Trends unveiled new state data on child maltreatment and child welfare. They also issued an analysis that indicates that one in three children entered for care due to parental substance abuse in 2017. The rate of 131 children per 100,000 represents a 5 percent increase over the previous year. That rate also
In January, CWLA reached out to the more than 100 new members of the 116th Congress with a child welfare background package of information including Investing in All of Child Welfare. This piece argues for investing in ALL of child welfare services: Child welfare’s continuum of care includes prevention of child abuse before it happens
by Tessa Buttram On Wednesday, February 13, 2019, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing entitled, “Homeless in America: Examining the Crisis and Solutions to End Homelessness.” This was the first hearing of the Committee in the 116th Congress. Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) began the hearing by providing an overview on homelessness in the
by Nick Cervone On February 13th, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (the Law Center) and National Network for Youth (NN4Y) released Alone without a Home: A National Review of State Laws Affecting Unaccompanied Youth, a report concerning the 700,000 minors that experience homelessness every year in America. These minors are identified
On February 9, the head of New York City’s JJCA child welfare agency, penned an opinion piece in the Capitol Hill publication, The Hill, calling out an HHS decision to waive anti-discrimination regulations in child welfare placements. CEO Ronald E Richter denounced the recent decision by the Administration to issue the waiver arguing that there
On Wednesday, February 13, 95 Members of the House signed a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar criticizing the Departments decision to grant a waiver to South Carolina from nondiscrimination provisions of the federal child welfare programs. A few days later Americans United filed a lawsuit against HHS. The House of
On Tuesday, January 16, an impressive array of state and national organizations joined in support of Tribal nations and representatives in defense of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and last week the opposition submitted their arguments. The response was more limited to the State Plaintiffs’-Appellees’ Response Brief (Texas, Indian and Louisiana); Individual Plaintiffs’-Appellees’ Response
