Holding Pattern in Senate Last week efforts to adopt the House version of the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456) (Conference Report 114-628) continued but success has stalled—at least temporarily. By week’s end the only thing that was clear is that they had not yet reached unanimous support for the bill and passing it.
The Coalition on Juvenile Justice has launched Collaborating for Change: Addressing Youth Homelessness and Juvenile Justice, a project with two main goals: to decrease the likelihood that homeless youth become involved with the juvenile justice system; and to prevent youth homelessness among justice-involved youth. The project is a collaboration between the Coalition and with project partners, the National
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
On Thursday the Education Department and HHS issued guidance, Non-Regulatory Guidance: Ensuring Educational Stability for Children in Foster Care that is intended to help implement new provisions of the reauthorized Education and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) that seek to protect the education access for student who are also in foster care. The guidance includes 40
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
Part of the delay in the final two years of phase-out of the adoption delink from the 1996 AFDC eligibility standard as included in Family First Prevention Services Act, is that it has been challenging to get data on how states are reinvesting state dollars saved as the federal adoption assistance funding expands due to
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
On Wednesday, June 8, the Bureau of Indian Affairs released a long awaited set of regulations or final rule on the Indian Child Welfare Act. The Final Rule which will be implemented in 180 days, is the result of more than 2000 comments submitted after a proposed rule had been published in March 2015. CWLA