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The clearinghouse that approves foster care prevention services has okayed four new programs, including the second kinship support model. 

The federal agency that oversees health care entitlements has made it easier for states to use Medicaid dollars in some large group facilities for youth in foster care.

A Government Accountability Office report found mixed results in the effort to get states to spend more on the front and back ends of child welfare.

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. 

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. 

Just days into Wyoming’s legislative session, bills to expand legal counsel to children and parents in child welfare court were killed by a lack of support. But half of the package has already been raised from the dead.

As implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act gradually rolls out, Los Angeles County anticipated that the move away from its special agreement on federal child welfare funding would mean an annual loss of more than $200 million.

Yesterday, the Wyoming Judiciary Committee voted in favor of a proposal that would move child representation out of the Office of State Public Defenders and establish a standalone Wyoming Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) office, but moved to hear more discussion on the creation of a similar Office of Parent Counsel at the next committee meeting.

Wyoming is hoping to use newly available federal funds to improve its guarantees of representation to children and parents involved in child welfare proceedings. The two proposals working their way through Wyoming’s Judiciary Committee would move child representation out of the Office of State Public Defenders, and establish a standalone office.