Voice for Adoption (VFA), the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) and the Center on American Progress have released a new study, Welcoming All Families that analyses discrimination against LGBTQ youth in foster care and discrimination against the recruitment of foster and adoptive parents. The report finds that although same-sex parents are not banned
Last week the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in HHS released a new study on opioid treatment and child welfare. The report, Medication-Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder in the Child Welfare Context: Challenges and Opportunities, outlines some of the challenges in providing treatment to families involved with child welfare.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its annual report on Mortality in the United States and found more bad news. The United States continues to see a decline in life expectancy, something that is unusual for a developed country to experience over several years. The mortality numbers continue to show another increase
On Thursday, November 29, seven judges of the Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) heard oral arguments as to why hundreds of thousands of infants born dependent on opioids should be allowed their own representation in a separate proceeding from the nationwide opioid litigation currently proceeding against several large pharmaceutical companies. The Child Welfare League
On Tuesday, November 13, the Department of Health and Human Services used their National Adoption Month celebration to highlight a new focus for the next year on the promotion of adoption of teenagers from foster care. The annual event, which began in 1994, was held in the great hall of the Hubert H. Humphrey HHS
n Thursday, November 8, HHS released the 25th AFCARS Report indicating that foster care placements increased for the sixth straight year going from 436,551 in FY 2016 to 442,995 in FY 2017. The AFCARS reports are based on the number of children in the system as of the last day of the federal fiscal
A new survey by the Chronical of Social Change indicates that the number of foster family homes may be declining while the number of relative homes is up. According to the second such yearly survey the publication found that at least 15 states lost foster homes between 2017 to 2018 with five states experiencing a
Shaquita Ogleetree On October 15, the Hamilton Project, the Brookings Institution and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities co-hosted a forum to explore work requirements and the role of anti-poverty programs. The Hamilton Project released its economic analysis report on how work requirements in Medicaid and SNAP affect the goals of a social safety
On Wednesday, October 3, a new report was released, Evaluating State Mental Health and Addiction Parity Statutes: A Technical Report, ranking the fifty states A through F on whether or not they are providing parity access to mental health and substance abuse treatment consistent with the federal law. That law generally requires health insurers to
The Senate approved the Substance Use–Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act’’ or the ‘‘SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act’’ or HR 6 on Wednesday, October 3 by a vote of 98 to one. The lone vote was by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) not