On Thursday, January 19, HHS released the 2015 Child Maltreatment Report. In Fiscal Year 2015, approximately 683,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect. Comparing the national estimate of victims from 2011 (658,000) to the rounded number of reported victims in 2015 (683,000) shows an increase of 3.8 percent. The change in victim counts from
With some proposing that we defund programs that have not been reauthorized, the Congressional Budget Office issues regular annual reports of how many programs have not been reauthorized. Congress frequently fails to meet the window to reauthorize programs. An occurrence that seems more frequent in recent congresses. In January 2016, the CBO released, Unauthorized Appropriations
Help Us Protect SSBG The Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) is a vital source of support for your state ESPECIALLY for child welfare, domestic violence, elder abuse services, and other human services. Speaker Ryan has offered proposals to eliminate all $1.7 billion in human services funding. See how your state spends its SSBG and
Evidence is all around that the country is facing another drug abuse crisis. Not surprisingly that crisis is impacting the number of children entering foster care. Child welfare will continue to be effected by increased drug epidemic and that could become even more significant if Congress repeals the ACA, block grants Medicaid and does not
On Wednesday, January 11, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered—Youth Radio, broadcast a story about a young man who entered foster care at the age of one and who recently aged out of care at the age of 21. Noel Anaya spent nearly all of his life in the California foster care system and tells
On Thursday, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee had positive words for the home visiting program. [the Human Resources Subcommittee will work on] “solutions to help more families climb the economic ladder and escape poverty. We will continue taking action to ensure the programs under our Committee’s jurisdiction are encouraging and rewarding work
The new 115th Congress officially starts on January 3. Behind the scenes discussion have been on-going on using a 2017 budget resolution (left over from last year) to very quickly provide the first budget reconciliation. The process will start this week with the Senate expected to pass a budget resolution this week and the House
Since much of the President-elect Trump's agenda was wrapped less around specific domestic issues and more around the larger issues such as immigration and trade, it is not clear what the domestic policy agenda will look like. As a result, the priorities may be wrapped around a few big Trump initiatives and a Republican congressional
On Wednesday, November 2 there was a Capitol Hill briefing on the home visiting program, MIECHV (Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting). The target audience included Capitol Hill staff from both houses and both parties. The goal of the briefing was an early education of congressional staff on the program and how it works. The
Recently National Public Radio (NPR) ran a report on a fateful turn in the history of this nation’s child care system dating back to the early 1970s. The story outlines how close we came to a universal child care system. Close enough for a Democratic Congress to pass in 1971 a system of care that