As has been the case in past years, CWLA is joining with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to conduct an annual tax credit outreach initiative to provide updated information and outreach tools to organizations that can help spread the message about refundable tax credits and free tax filing assistance to low income families. The Center is
When Congress returns this week it will mark the beginning of a very short congressional calendar. The President is scheduled to deliver his last State of the Union address on January12 which will unofficially begin the new budget debate for FY 2017. The official budget will come a little more than four weeks later in
The Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities continued their deliberations last week with a two day discussion in Virginia just outside of Washington DC. Based on the public discussions, members continued to disagree and debate what should be included in a final package of proposals that will go to the Administration, the Congress
On Thursday, December 3, Capitol Hill was the location for a briefing on Substance Use Treatment: A Core Component of Child Welfare Reform, the briefing entitled the Elephant in the Room discussed the roll that substance abuse is and has been playing in child welfare and foster care in particular. CWLA was one of the
Last week Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) issued a call for emergency funding to address the heroin and opioid abuse epidemic. Senator Shaheen’s proposal would provide supplemental appropriations totaling $600 million to programs at the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services and draw the funding as emergency spending meaning that it
As a way to highlight the need to prevent child abuse and child maltreatment from taking place, Prevent Child Abuse America held an event on the Washington National Mall last Tuesday, October 13. Led by their Virginia and Maryland chapters the gathering was an attempt to celebrate childhood and all that communities and individuals can
On Monday, October 5 the American Youth Policy Forum sponsored a briefing that focused on how state and local child welfare programs address the challenge of converting research to inform policy and practice decisions in the child welfare field. The research was funded by the W. T. Grant Foundation in an effort to improve the
This past week Montana Governor Steve Bullock announced a plan to improve child protection and child welfare services. The announcement comes against a backdrop of increasing state foster care numbers and a threat by HHS to cut-off CAPTA funds if the state does not come into compliance with that law’s federal requirements on disclosure of
The Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities has been holding a series of deliberation calls to settle on recommendations that have the potential to be wide ranging in their impact on state child protective services and child welfare systems. The Commission established by Congress at the end of 2012 (Protect Our Kids Act
Last week the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on the issue of unregulated custody transfers what some in the news media have labeled as "rehoming." The GAO report, Steps Have Been Taken to Address Unregulated Custody Transfers of Adopted Children was undertaken at the request of Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Congressman Jim