On Wednesday, November 16, Voice for Adoption (VFA) sponsored their annual Adoption Portrait Project in honor of November as National Adoption Month. The annual event features families who have adopted children from the foster care system. The families are sponsored by members of Congress who agree to highlight their picture and their stories in their
With the latest AFCARS data official, there are now clear indications that foster care numbers are trending upward. A third consecutive increase in foster care to 427,910 children in care represents an eight percent increase since 2012. Likely these numbers will be even higher when the 2016 numbers are reported next year. The numbers are
A new Child Trends survey of state child welfare spending shows a slight decrease in funding between 2012 to 2014 with a slightly bigger decrease in federal spending. The survey showed a continued pattern of great variations across the fifty states. A pattern that has existed since the first such surveys provided detail on spending
Massachusetts has reported some new and detailed information on the impact of substance abuse on child abuse reports. The data, reported recently by the Boston Herald indicates that within a six month period substance abuse was a factor in 14,000 cases, or 30 percent, of the 47,700 total reports of abuse and neglect the state
There was no vote on the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456, Conference Report 114-628) as Congress finished a budget deal last week Wednesday. As a result, the bill still remains in the same place. That means that it could be finished or dead for this Congress. There could be one more run at
September as National Kinship Care Month was celebrated at the Children’s Bureau on Friday, September 30. More than a dozen states have joined onto a national effort to celebrate kin families in the month of September. The Bureau celebration, which was also webcast, including comments by several kinship care givers from several cities including New
There was no news regarding the passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456, Conference Report 114-628) as time in this session winds down to a pre-election pause. There were on-going discussions regarding potential amendments and verbal or written assurances to fix the legislation but there did not seem to be any clear
While a Senate bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) has been held up in the Senate by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan bill last Thursday on H.R. 5963, the Supporting Youth Opportunity and Preventing Delinquency Act of 2016. The bill was voted out of
The best news regarding the passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456, Conference Report 114-628) is that Congress did not get a budget deal and adjourn last week giving supporters and opponents at least one more week to find a path forward. Behind the scenes discussions have continued but it is unclear
A potential long-term result of the current debate on the Families First Prevention Services Act is the pitting of the need for front end prevention of child maltreatment against the need for intervention services that prevent foster care. In reality true comprehensive reform of the nation’s child welfare systems requires both of these vastly underfunded
