After 15 rounds of voting, Kevin McCarthy has secured enough votes to become the 53rd Speaker of the House of Representatives. Since 2006, Speaker McCarthy has served California’s 23rd district in Congress. After he was elected to Congress, Speaker McCarthy became Chief Deputy Whip and later served as Majority Whip. In 2014, he was elected
On January 6th, 2023, the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth (CCFY) announced that it will be co-chaired by Congressmembers Gwen Moore (D-WI), Don Bacon (R-NE), Sydney Kamlager (D-CA), and Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA). CCFY is one of the largest bipartisan caucuses in the House of Representatives and the new leaders are committed to improving the
On January 4th, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released the results of its annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which shows how people living in America reported about their experience with mental health conditions, substance use, and pursuit of
This past Congress has certainly had its challenges. Throughout the last Congress, CWLA has joined with national stakeholders and coalitions to increase funding levels across 44 separate funding programs – many of which received an increase in the spending omnibus, and some remained at level funding. While a notable disappointment was the failure to reauthorize
On December 22nd, just before the end of the Congress, the Senate confirmed Rebecca Jones Gaston as the Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, at the Administration for Children and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Before her appointment by President Biden to ACYF, Jones-Gaston was the Child
On December 14th, 2022, with only a handful of days left in the 117th Congress, Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC) introduced the Parental Right to Protect Act, which would introduce gender-affirming care issues into the Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act (CAPTA). The bill seeks to make states ineligible for CAPTA funding if they allow Child
On December 15th, the Trevor Project released the 2022 U.S. National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health. For the first time, the report presents findings on the experiences of nearly 34,000 LGBTQ people ages 13-24 in the U.S., segmented by all 50 states. From the summary: “These data provide critical insights into the suicide risk
The National Women’s Law Center released a new report on December 15th, 2022: State Child Care and Early Education Updates 2022: Progress on a Long Path. The report provides state-by-state summaries highlighting key actions taken by states in the past year to expand access to affordable, high-quality child care and early education opportunities and to
On December 20th, 2022, NPR’s Fresh Air hosted the New York Times' Matt Richtel to talk about the current mental health crisis among teenagers in the United States. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide among adolescents have risen sharply in recent years. Richtel spent nearly two years reporting on the crisis — speaking with
Last week, Congress continued to forge ahead on negotiating an Appropriations deal. Democrats and Republicans reached a topline spending agreement for a fiscal 2023 omnibus, three of the four top appropriators on Capitol Hill said late Tuesday, December 13th, 2022. Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said in a statement that negotiators had "reached a
