kinship navigator

For the past five years, the New York State Legislature and Governor Andrew Cuomo (D), along with more than a dozen other states and the United States Senate and House, have issued resolutions/proclamations to commemorate September as “Kinship Care Month.”

A subtle change in child welfare policy, made shortly before the world went indoors, will allow child welfare agencies to use a calculation called “adoption savings” discount on matching certain spending requirements on federal funds. 

With New York shut down by the coronavirus pandemic and vulnerable families under threat like never before, lawmakers approved a state budget late last week gutting support for grandparents, neighbors and other kin caring for children who otherwise might be in foster care.

The newly established clearinghouse to approve Family First Act services has looked at three kinship navigators, one-stop shops set up to help kin who take in a grandchild, nephew or family friend. 

In 2013, a volunteer for an upstate New York legal aid office met with a couple  planning to take in two girls — the daughters of the wife’s sister, who was struggling with drug addiction.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) put out instructions late last week for funds to help build programs that help relative caregivers, a service that the federal government will soon split the cost of with states.

The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) was hit this week with a federal class-action lawsuit stemming from its failure to supply enough foster home beds in the state’s southern region, a problem the state’s legislature is hoping to address with legislation aimed at shortening the length of stay in care.