Cutting their week short due to the hurricane, the Senate gave final approval to a Military Construction and Veterans -Energy and Water--Legislative Branch FY 19 spending package sending it back to the House for a final approval. The bill goes to the White House for signature and marks the first FY 2019 bills enacted before
The Senate delayed a vote on an opioids package of legislation until this week. The Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018, addresses a range of programs and agencies, sometimes building on 2016 Congressional action though the CARA and CURES acts of that year. Senators had intended to debate the bill on Thursday but put off
Shaquita Ogletree On Wednesday, September 12, the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth hosted a congressional briefing on effective interventions that are working to keep children and families intact and preventing entry into foster care. The panel included a discussion by Christen Glickman and Jessica Wooten from Youth Village, Chelsea Geyer and Ms. U from DC127,
The Senate has been struggling to move their opiods legislation, but the hope is it will finally move this week. When they do its passage is to set the stage for a mega-negotiation with the House. Back in the spring there had been a hope that there would be movement on another opiods abuse bill
Shaquita Ogletree On Thursday, September 6, 2018, the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth along with First Focus hosted a congressional briefing on the Intersection of Medicaid and Child Welfare. The briefing discussed the importance of Medicaid coverage for current and former foster youth and highlighted the need to fix a glitch in Medicaid regulation affecting
On Thursday, August 23, the Senate passed H.R. 6157 an $857 billion appropriations package that combines the Defense Department appropriations with the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 85 to 7. Now the bill will likely go to a House-Senate conference committee where they will have to act fast before
The Administration has announced one of their decisions regarding an update of the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) with an August 21, 2018 Federal Register announcement. They will delay an implementation that was scheduled to take place now. Instead the Children’s Bureau will delay the compliance and effective dates in the
On Tuesday, July 24, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources held an oversight hearing on the implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFA). Based on the testimony and answers by Associate Commissioner Jerry Milner, Children’s Bureau-HHS, and the comments of Subcommittee members there are a lot of questions on the
On Thursday, July 25, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) released a Senate “Dear Colleague” letter opposing the House Appropriations Aderholt Amendment. The letter was signed by 40 senators. There are some members who did not sign the letter due to their leadership roles on the Appropriations Committee and in the Senate, who are all but certain
According to numbers released last Friday, of the 2551 children and youth ages five through 17 originally counted as eligible for reunification, 1442 children have been reunified with parents while 378 were placed with guardians or sponsors. But that leaves an additional 700 children still in government shelters. The 700 children remaining in government shelters