The Senate Finance Committee is holding a confirmation hearing on Tuesday on the nomination of Lynn A. Johnson to be the next Assistant Secretary for Family Support (formerly Administration on Children and Families). As the Senate was preparing to move forward on the Assistant Secretary position, the Administration was nominating Elizabeth Darling to be the
On March 15, HHS published in the Federal Register two notices in regard to a delay in the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting Systems (AFCARS). In the first notice, the Children’s Bureau is proposing to delay the AFCARS implementation rule (finalized in 2016) by two years. Comments for this proposed delay are due
Shaquita Ogletree On Monday, February 26, Governor Matt Bevin (KY-R) and Children’s Bureau Comissioner Jerry Milner were part of a panel of experts on foster care, adoption, and family law who shared their perspectives on how to reform the foster and adoption systems. The event was sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The Governor
A significant first step in the implementation of the Families First Act (read a CWLA description here) will come on October 1, 2018. Under the legislation the Department of Health and Human Services is directed to release the practice criteria required to define prevention services or programs. They are also directed to provide a pre-approved
The budget proposes an optional block grant of Title IV-E foster care funding that could be spent for any services now funded under foster care, adoption assistance or Child Welfare Services and Promoting Safe and Stable Families. As pointed out in earlier CWLA analysis, Child Welfare & Block Grants, the 1995 child welfare block grant
Once again SSBG is targeted for elimination and without any doubt, such an elimination would hit child welfare in ways big and small as well as many other human service programs including those that effect domestic violence and elder abuse victims. SSBG provided 11 percent of federal child welfare spending in 2014 (Child Trends Survey
The adoption incentive was created by the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997 and was expanded to some kinship placements because of the 2014 reauthorization. States are awarded if they increase adoptions from foster care over the previous year. That incentive also includes now increased placements into Title IV-E kinship placements. The last
The Family First Act made it into the CR/budget agreement after the House inserted it in their slimmed down CR proposal. The Senate picked up the package. It is close to the version that had been considered in late 2016 with some additional behind the scenes modifications added into the final version. It includes the
On Wednesday, January 31, the Brookings Institution was the location for the 2018 CHAMPS kick off. Last December the coalition sponsored a briefing on Capitol Hill. CHAMPS – children need amazing parents is a campaign that promotes the need for state and local agencies to establish a new partnership between foster parents and child welfare
Recently one of our members passed along this 2017 article based on the experiences of child protection workers in one overburdened county in Ohio—one of those areas overwhelmed by the spread of opioids. ‘It’s just horrific’: caseworkers break their silence to reveal toll of addiction on children Read the article by The Guardian, and understand