Holding Pattern in Senate The Senate comes back mid-week for the waning days of the summer session. Plans are to depart by July 15 with no return until post-Labor Day. As a result, last week there were on-going discussions involving various organizations, foundations, and government representatives with some state and local governments and advocacy groups
Bill Passes House Before House action came to a halt in response to a gun-control sit-down protest, the House of Representatives passed the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456) by a voice vote. The legislation was taken up on Tuesday, June 21 as part of the House suspension calendar which is a House method
The Bill Passes On Wednesday, June 15 the House Ways and Means Committee passed the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456). The legislation was adopted by a voice vote but only after more than an hour of debate that outlined some of the challenges regarding the proposal and the process. Most members, both Republicans
HHS has revised and increased the amount given to states under the Adoption and Subsidized Guardianships Incentives Fund. The new revised figures make up for a shortfall paid out of federal fiscal year 2015 funds by taking from federal fiscal year 2016 funds. The awards, recently expanded by Congress to both adoptions and kinship placement
Late Friday afternoon a group of House and Senate Republicans and Democrats released the, Family First Prevention Act along with a summary. The legislation includes three overarching pieces: a reauthorization of the Title IV-B programs (Promoting Safe and Stable Families, Child Welfare Services), new definitions of foster care including greater oversight and limitations of residential/institutional
Before consideration of more partisan issues, the House Ways and Means Committee passed in bipartisan fashion a bill that will make improvements in the interstate placement of children, HR 4472. CWLA has endorsed legislation, The Modernizing the Interstate Placement of Children in Foster Care Act, HR 4472 and its Senate version S 2574. The House
The criticism of SSBG leveled by some members of Congress and even a few advocates in recent years has been that it lacks accountability and outcomes. One legislative committee report described it as “no-strings-attached slush fund for states with no accountability…Ending this program …continues efforts to focus limited taxpayers’ dollars on outcomes, not inputs, of
Last week CWLA endorsed legislation that will improve the interstate placement of children in child welfare. The legislation called The Modernizing the Interstate Placement of Children in Foster Care Act was introduced in both houses in recent weeks. The first bill HR 4472 was sponsored by Congressman Todd Young (R-IN) and the second bill S
Last October, when HHS awarded the annual adoption incentives, now renamed the Adoption and Legal Guardianship Incentive Payments Program, the awards were much less than the fifty states had earned. The awards now based on adoptions and kinship placement increases that took place in federal fiscal year 2014 (FY ’14) were funded from FY 2015.
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