The Administration for Community Living is seeking input by Friday, February 7, 2020. The Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act, passed in 2018, established an Advisory Council to Support Grandparents Raising Grandchildren. That Council is seeking public input. They are particularly interested in opinions from former and current grandparent(s) or other older relative raising children, or
On January 15, 2020, the Children’s Bureau released the annual child abuse and neglect report: Child Maltreatment 2018. The numbers show an increase in the rates of abuse and neglect for the first time since 2015, with infants and young children having the highest increase in child maltreatment. For the federal fiscal year 2018, there
A new study, Association of Medicaid Expansion With Opioid Overdose Mortality in the United States, finds that jurisdictions that expanded access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had a six percent reduction in opioid deaths. The study published in JAMA Network Open, more specifically counties in expansion states, had an 11 percent lower
On Tuesday, January 14, the House Committee on Education and Labor approved H.R. 5191, the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (RHYTPA) of 2019. The bill, which is a reauthorization of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act of 1974 (RHYA), adds non-discriminatory language that aims to protect LGBTQ+ youth, focuses on trauma-informed services,
On Thursday, December 19, Congress passed the Family First Transition Act as part of an omnibus appropriations bill this week. The further consolidated appropriations bill of 2020 (page 1483) is the appropriations agreement reached through Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and congressional leaders. The original vehicle for the Family First Transition bill was supposed to move
As part of the budget deal, Congress provided the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) with some small but important increases that CWLA and the National Child Abuse Coalition sees as being part of a new recognition of CAPTA’s importance. CAPTA state grants will increase by $5 million to $90 million. Far short of
CWLA submitted comments to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources, Health and Human Services Grants Regulation on the HHS notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would repeal anti-discrimination provisions as implemented during the Obama Administration before the due date of Thursday, December 19. The letter states: “We need a comprehensive national strategy
On December 13, the Boston Globe and ProPublica released their findings on the first national survey they conducted on state’s compliance with the only federal child abuse law, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). The reporters found that not one state complied with all of the legal requirements. CAPTA requires states to comply
On Tuesday, December 17, NPR’s Steve Inskeep and journalist with The Kansas City Star Laura Bauer discussed the investigation of the outcomes for foster care children in America. The 7-minute interview, “Kansas City Star’ Probe Uncover Failures In Foster Care System, illustrated what happens to children who age out of foster care. Bauer and her
On December 30, the Washington Post in an article, “We are just destroying these kids’: The foster children growing up inside detention centers,” documented some of the ongoing problems in the state of West Virginia and the tragedy of some youth ending up in the state’s juvenile justice system when they should have been in