The bill has been widely praised by a diverse group of national, state, and local organizations and stakeholders, including child welfare advocacy groups and agencies representing public child welfare administrators substance abuse treatment and prevention administrators and providers pediatricians social workers biological parents, kin caregivers, and foster and adoptive parents and courts and judges, among others. 5456 (by voice vote), as it had been reported by the House Ways and Means Committee.
#Family first act s 3065. full#
On June 21, 2016, the full House passed H.R. A companion to the bill was introduced in the Senate (S. 5456 was introduced on June 13, 2016, and was ordered reported by the House Ways and Means Committee (unanimous voice vote) on J(with amendment). In its 2015 report on use of “congregate care” in child welfare, the federal Children’s Bureau concluded that while there is an “appropriate role for congregate care placements in the continuum of foster care settings” a child’s placement in such a setting “should be based on the specialized behavioral and mental health needs or clinical disabilities of children.”Īdditionally, the bill would extend funding authority for the child and family services programs authorized in Title IV-B of the Social Security Act and it would revise the purposes of, and eligibility for, the Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP) to make them more consistent with the goal of helping all youth who experience foster care at an older age make a successful transition to adulthood.
With limited exceptions, this change would restrict Title IV-E foster care maintenance payment support for children in foster care to those otherwise eligible children placed in foster family homes or those placed in a “qualified residential treatment program” that offers a “treatment model” designed to address the clinical or other needs of children with emotional or behavioral disorders. This change would respond to long-standing concern by state administrators, child welfare advocates, and some policymakers that federal child welfare support is largely available only after a child is placed in foster care and that little resources are provided to strengthen and stabilize families to prevent children’s removal to foster care.Īt the same time, the bill would restrict the ability of states to claim support for children in foster care who are placed in group settings rather than in foster family homes. 3065) would amend the child welfare programs authorized in the Social Security Act to allow states to receive open-ended federal support under Title IV-E for time-limited services and programs that are intended to prevent the need for children to enter foster care by allowing children to remain safely at home with parents, or with kin. The Family First Prevention Services Act of 2016 (H.R.
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