group care

In response to a large influx of children into state care in the late 1990s resulting from tragedies that spawned fear within the agency, Connecticut developed a sprawling system of institutional settings to have enough “placements.”

The slightly re-named Family First Prevention Services Act, an overhaul of federal child welfare financing aimed at supporting more efforts to prevent foster care placements, will likely be introduced next week in both the House and Senate.

Senate Finance Committee leadership plans to meld several major child welfare financing shifts into one bill called the Families First Act (FFA). The act, which will be introduced next year, would likely mark the biggest change in federal child welfare policy since the passage of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act in 1980.

Lexie Gruber and her sister couldn’t live at home anymore, but her uncle was ready and willing to welcome both girls with open arms. The State of Connecticut deemed his house unfit because it did not have enough bedrooms.

Group settings should only be used for brief and emergency interventions in the foster care system, a panel of witnesses told members of the Senate Finance Committee today. “There is a wide consensus that children are best served in a family setting,” said Sen.

Note: This article was updated on Dec. 12 The Senate Finance Committee approved a bill today that could usher in a reauthorization of federal adoption incentives before Congress breaks for the holidays.

by Patrick McCarthy and Gary Stangler Over the past two decades, we’ve learned a lot about how best to help families and children when they come into contact with the child welfare system — and we’ve learned what doesn’t work.