federal government

After a confirmation process that included a standoff over the Trump administration’s delay of new data collection on foster care and adoption, Lynn Johnson was confirmed to lead the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) just before the Labor Day weekend.

Lynn Johnson, President Trump’s choice to lead the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the Department of Health and Human Services, is scheduled for next Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.

The Trump administration has been slow to nominate people to the top tiers of leadership that require Senate confirmation. But at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), it has begun to plug in some new hires among agencies serving youth and families.

With the notable exception of the fate of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, there’s nothing doing yet on youth-related issues and the White House. Jeff Sessions and Tom Price, President Trump’s respective nominees to lead the Justice and Health and Human Services departments, have yet to receive confirmation votes by the full Senate.

The Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will provide nearly $2.8 million to seven organizations to support minority and disadvantaged children and youth who have been exposed to childhood trauma.

Finally, something they can agree on. Over the past five months we have been publishing columns focused on the big issues with how the federal government pays for child welfare. In the course of that coverage our two primary columnists – Richard Wexler, a staunch advocate for keeping families together and largely dismantling the foster care system, and Sean Hughes, who is more inclined to boost funding to foster care while also supporting families – have strongly disagreed over what the data tells us and what we should do differently.

On Thursday, January 3, 2013 the new congress began minutes after the 112th ended.  The 113th Congress includes many new faces and slightly different numbers, but it also began with the first of many carry-over issues.