foster homes

Illinois lawmakers are considering a bill that would set up exit interviews for youth after they leave a foster home.

A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers has introduced a resolution that would standardize the process of conducting home visits.

The Trump administration is using a 32-year-old law to loosen some restrictions on foster care funding for state child welfare agencies.  The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) announced in a program instruction yesterday that it would greatly ease the process for getting federal funds for extended foster care, and would permit funds for foster homes that have not been fully licensed. 

Seeking to increase the state’s support for a rapidly growing faction of its foster care system, Georgia’s House and Senate included a $1 per day raise in its payments to relatives.

After a long night of wiping off seats and sweeping up plastic cups at one of Los Angeles’ largest stadiums, Abraham Gomez rushes home to change his clothes, then hits the open highway just a little after sunrise.

Last month, Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson (R) released an audit of the state’s child welfare system, which has lost almost half its capacity in the past five years. According to the report, Oregon lacks an adequate supply of foster parents to take care of some foster children, leading to the contentious and costly practice of what the agency refers to as “unplaced foster youth” spending some nights at hotels and offices.

As The Imprint reported in multiple stories last week, the Family First Prevention Services Act has become law. It includes the biggest change to the structure of federal child welfare finance since the establishment of the Title IV-E entitlement in 1980.

Efforts like Continuum of Care Reform in California are part of the statewide goal to place more foster youth in family settings. However, many county child welfare agencies are struggling to meet these goals due to a shortage of available resource families, a group that includes both foster parents and kinship caregivers.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed a bill in July to create a new cabinet-level agency to oversee the children’s issues in the state based on the recommendations of the Washington State Blue Ribbon Commission on the Delivery of Services to Children and Families.