The Administration carries over earlier child welfare reform measures submitted in the past few years. These include an ACF-CMS Demonstration Projects to address over use of Psychotropic Medication in the treatment of foster children. The proposal envisions for each of the next five years, $50 million a year through ACF matched by $100 million a year through Medicaid. Funding would be used for competitive demonstration projects. States would receive performance-based Medicaid incentive payments to improve care coordination paired with ACF funding to states that support state efforts to build provider and systems capacity.
The Administration also continues to advocate for strategies to prevent foster care placements and post-permanency services. As was the case last year, $586 million over ten years in matching funds that would be based on a child’s case plan to prevent placement into foster care and to provide post-permanence services.
The proposal calls for funding to be used for evidence-based practices that will reduce the likelihood that a child will be placed into foster care and to sustain permanency for recently placed children. This includes the promotion of therapeutic care through enhanced training and salaries through family-based foster care
The Administration continues to seek reforms to the child support program that would assure that child support payments made on behalf of children in foster care to be used in the best interest of the child, rather than as general revenue for the state. In the past the Administration has suggested this reform to align with other child support provisions that seek to pass through collected funds to the family/children involved. Currently states are required to recover these funds under Title IV-E Foster Care to reimburse the state and the federal government for part of the cost of care. The cost would be $46 million in 2017.
Finally, the Administration proposes {For more information see the Children’s Monitor Members Newsletter}
