Funding for the current fiscal year expires on March 23. It is not expected to be a problem as that short term CR was designed to allow appropriators to allocate funding provided under the February 9, 2018 budget deal (PL 115-123). That deal agreed to raise the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) caps for both
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
Shortly before the President’s Day break, Congresswoman Karen Bass (D-CA), co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, introduced the Health Insurance for Former Foster Youth Act, HR 4998. The legislation fixes a flaw in the ACA that extends Medicaid coverage to age 26 for any young person who exited foster care. With the Affordable
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
Working with the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, CWLA is joining with other organizations to promote the Get It Back Campaign. The Center regularly works on encouraging families and now some individuals to be sure to apply for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The campaign includes this video. The EITC allows lower income
HHS through the Office of The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has just release a review of the Title IV-E Kinship (Kin-GAP) program labeling it as “work in progress.” Since the enactment of the 2008 Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoption Act, states have had the option to provide subsidized guardian assistance
On Monday, the House is expected to vote on a bill that makes reforms in oversight of representative payees and others who oversee recipients of Social Security benefits. The legislation H.R. 4547, Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act will change current law so that in instances when a Social Security beneficiary or SSI recipient