Summary of White House Convening on Child Welfare Transformation

On Tuesday, July 30, the White House hosted a convening on transforming child welfare to encourage innovation, build new partnerships, and exchange best practices. The Biden administration invited a broad coalition of key stakeholders, including policymakers across federal, state, local, and tribal governments and discussions centered the wisdom of child welfare and family support organizations and young people and families with lived experience.

The administration affirmed its commitment to ensuring all children have the opportunity to achieve their full potential and to grow up in safe and loving homes. The speakers further echoed the need for community and economic support to prevent family separations in times of poverty. It further reinforced the importance of strengthening the foster care system and increasing the use of kinship care, when possible, to preserve a child’s connection to their family and community.

During the convening, the administration announced several policies to prevent family separation and to support and create opportunities for youth and families. To offer additional guidance, six new questions and answers have been published in the Children’s Bureaus’ Child Welfare Policy Manual. The reforms targeted four key areas:

• Separating poverty and neglect
• Prevention services
• Prioritizing kin and youth needs
• Innovations and research

The policies above align with Social Current’s commitment to equity and community health and wellbeing. The administration’s investment in upstream prevention resources offers the flexibility needed to meet a family and community’s unique needs. Moreover, increased flexibility and amendments to the Family First Act serve as critical steps to grow the number of services available to families and increase their accessibility.

The reforms discussed and implemented by the administration to invest in families further reflect Social Current’s policy priorities. The legislation Social Current advocates for centers on four key cornerstones: advancing equity, improving health and well-being, increasing economic opportunity and mobility, and achieving social sector health and excellence. The administration’s commitment to each of these pillars is evident as they work to reduce poverty, prevent family separation, and grow opportunities for future generations.

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Separating Poverty and Neglect

The administration elevated key state-led initiatives on preventing poverty from warranting child removal.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is issuing policy guidance encouraging states to update their maltreatment definitions under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. It recommends excluding the financial inability to provide adequate housing, child care, and other material needs from the definition of child neglect. Alternatively, the state should first work to assist families (CWPM 2.3 Q/A #5).

HHS has also expressed its commitment to developing guidance to train mandated reporters to be aware of the revised definitions of neglect. The training will also extend to recognizing the need to connect families to supports.

Prevention Services

The administration stressed the importance of prevention services that are well-resourced, evidence-based, and uniquely tailored to each family’s needs. The final policy issued clarifies the information Title IV-E agencies and community partners need to collect and retain under the Title IV-E Prevention Services Program (CWPM Section 8.6A Q/As #3 and #4). The convening further discussed policies to expand the flexibility of federal funds states and tribes may direct toward prevention services, which are outlined below:

• Offer tribal governments additional flexibility to use tribally accepted prevention services when they hold agreements with state child welfare agencies (CWPM 8.6 Q/As #1 and #2).
• Extend federal administrative funding to assist families in accessing and engaging with prevention programs, including case management, peer navigation, and transportation services (CWPM 8.6C.1 Q/A #4).
• Integrate and leverage the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to prevent a family’s involvement in the child welfare system.

Prioritizing Kin and Youth Needs

Empirical and observational studies have shown improved outcomes for children placed in kinship care, including stability, behavioral health, and education. The following steps were discussed to incentivize kinship placements:

• Permitting child welfare agencies to access federal funds to finance background check operations to accelerate licensing for kin and additional foster care providers (CWPM 8.1B #33).
• Publishing a website to spotlight states and tribes that have adopted new kinship licensing rules. The website will also promote transparency through kinship placement rates.
• Publishing a resource guide to detail federal programs oriented toward supporting grandparents and kin in their caregiving roles.
• Conducting a series of listening sessions to identify federal flexibilities needed for states and tribes to adopt kinship licensing rules and kinship first approaches.

Innovations and Research

The administration reiterated its commitment to developing actionable research on the intersection of prevention, family support, and child well-being. HHS announced several projects to achieve this goal:

• Prevent homelessness among youth aging out of foster care and build family resilience with innovative prevention approaches that emphasize service integration and agency collaboration.
• Better understand the health needs of children and parents involved in child welfare by studying Medicaid and child welfare data.
• Better identify the needs for community-based behavioral health and disability services by examining the experiences and traits of families who relinquished or voluntarily placed their children in child welfare custody.

Key Initiatives

The convening further discussed key initiatives the administration has led to promote kinship care and foster care best practices. The efforts extend to safe avenues for family preservation, including supports as an alternative to child removals. Below is a summary of key initiatives the administration has led:

• Accelerating Uptake of the Title IV-E Prevention Program: The Title IV-E Prevention Program provides open-ended funding for approaches proven to secure family preservation. The administration has approved 38 prevention plans, leading 42 states, the District of Columbia, and four tribes to hold approved prevention program plans.
• Expanding Evidenced-Based Services to Use in the Prevention Program: HHS recently announced changes to the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse review procedures. The revisions are intended to enable the review and approval of additional programs that can be funded through the Prevention Program. They also clarify how services that include economic supports can be reviewed, offer more flexible evaluation designs to meet evidence standards, and foster further engagement and transparency in the review process.
• Respecting Tribal sovereignty: The administration expanded the scope of Public Law 102-477 plans, growing their capacity to deliver more than $300 million in flexible funding to 298 Native tribes. The funds are intended to strengthen the economic stability and mobility of families in Indian Country, including by intertwining child welfare funding with workforce funding to help preserve families.
• Expanding Home Visiting: The administration has significantly increased the total authorized funding for home visits from $400 million in FY 2022 to $800 million by FY 2027 in the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program. Likewise, it quadrupled funding to $48 million to tribes over the same period. Most recently, HHS announced $3 million in grant funding to six new tribal entities. The funds would be directed toward home visiting programs to support and promote the well-being of expectant families and those with young children in Native communities.
• Prioritizing Kinship Care: In Sept. 2023, HHS issued a final rule that allows child welfare agencies to adopt simpler licensing or approval standards for all kin foster family homes. The rule also requires that states provide kinship caregivers with the same level of financial assistance that any other foster care provider receives. Within the first six months, six states and three tribes have taken up the kinship licensing rules and three more are pending approvals to do so. 
• Supporting Young People in Foster Care: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has increased public housing authority uptake of the Foster Youth to Independence Program, which provides housing vouchers for up to three years for older youth transitioning from foster care. Since the beginning of the Biden administration, HUD awarded $60.3 million, providing 4,364 vouchers for older youth. HHS also funded 11 state and tribal demonstration grants to test community approaches to prevent youth from becoming homeless. Meanwhile, The Department of Agriculture (USDA) and HHS are working to ensure that young people experiencing homelessness or transitioning out of foster care can retain their SNAP benefits without work reporting requirements, as secured by President Biden through the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
• Protecting Parents and Children with Disabilities from Discrimination: HHS issued a final rule to ensure that children with disabilities are served in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. The rule additionally outlines protections for parents and prospective parents against discrimination in visitation, reunification, child placement, and other child welfare services according to stereotypes about their disability.
• Reducing Child Poverty: The administration expanded the Child Tax Credit in 2021, saving nearly 40 million working families with 65 million children an average of $2,600. The tax credit helped to reduce child poverty nearly by half, lifting 1.2 million Hispanic children; 800,000 Black children; and almost 100,000 Asian children out of poverty.
• Providing Affordable Child Care for Families: President Biden has secured nearly a 50% increase in child care funding, keeping providers open during the pandemic and bolstering women’s labor force participation. HHS additionally capped out of pocket care costs to 7% of a family’s income for participants of child care subsidy programs.
• Providing Housing Relief for Families: The administration has provided rental assistance to more than 5 million households. It has also established a ceiling for annual rent increases for the two million apartments that are financed by federal tax credit. The reform reduces the maximum allowable annual rent increase for those renters by an average of nearly $500 this year. Additionally, during the pandemic, the administration provided rental assistance to 8 million renters.

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