CHILD WELFARE UPDATE: House Ways and Means Committee & White House Convening
- Kristen Torres
- Aug 12, 2024
- 3 min read
House Ways and Means Committee, Title IV-B Reauthorization Package
On July 24, the House Ways and Means Committee advanced two pieces of legislation to reauthorize and reform the Title IV-B child welfare program, H.R. 9076, the Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act and H.R. 7906, the Strengthening State and Tribal Child Support Enforcement Act.
H.R. 9076, the Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act Introduced by Work and Welfare Subcommittee Chairman Darin LaHood (R-IL) and Ranking Member Danny K. Davis (D-IL), the legislation reauthorizes and reforms child welfare programs under Title IV-B for 5 years and includes 16 bills from a bipartisan coalition of Republican and Democrat members that update and reform the programs.
Read a list of all 16 bills here.
H.R. 7906, the Strengthening State and Tribal Child Support Enforcement Act
Introduced by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), along with Reps. Darin LaHood (R-IL), David Schweikert (R-AZ), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), Gwen Moore (D-WI), and Suzan DelBene (D-WA), the legislation blocks an IRS rule that would make it more difficult for parents to receive child support payments. The legislation formally authorizes state use of contractors for purposes of child support enforcement and gives tribes the same access as states to information needed to operate their child support enforcement programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this bill would save $777 million.
Read a one pager on the legislation here.
White House Convening on Biden-Harris Administration Actions to Keep Children and Families Safely Together and Supported.
On July 30th, the White House hosted a convening on transforming child welfare to announce new policies that focus on preventing family separation and supporting and creating opportunities for families and youth. The announcement focused on four key areas.
Separating Poverty and Neglect - The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued guidance to encourage states to update their CAPTA maltreatment definitions to exclude the inability to provide material needs from the definition of child neglect.
Prevention Services - The Biden-Harris Administration will expand how states and Tribes can use federal funding for prevention activities, such as providing more flexibility to Tribal governments to use prevention services adapted to the culture and context of tribal communities when they have agreements with state child welfare agencies. Additionally, the Administration clarified that federal administrative funding may be used to help families get to and engage with prevention programs, such as case management, peer navigation and transportation to services and related appointments. The state may also claim for child-specific allowable activities such as child-care to facilitate a parent or kin caretaker participation in provision of prevention services. Finally, the Administration announced forthcoming guidance on how to integrate and leverage TANF funds for prevention efforts.
Prioritizing Kin and Youth Needs - These new policies include allowing the use of federal funds for background checks to facilitate quicker licensing for kin caregivers, publishing a resource guide on federal programs that provide support to grandparents and kin caregivers, and rolling out a website to spotlight best practices happening in the field.
Innovations and Research - The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) announced several projects to highlight innovative prevention practices, enable researchers to study linked Medicaid and child welfare data, and examine the needs for community based behavioral health services.
CASE STUDIES IN SUPPORTING PREVENTION THROUGH PROGRAM INTEGREATION PROJECT
ASPE contracted with Mathematica and the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) to conduct case studies of innovative prevention approaches that integrate human services. You can read the report here.
CHILD AND CAREGIVER OUTCOMES USING LINKED DATA (CCOULD
CCOULD provided technical assistance to states in linking Medicaid administrative claims of children and their caregivers with case-level data from the child welfare system. It combined state-specific data into a deidentified dataset for secondary data analysis.
CHILD WELFARE AND HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LINKING AND DATA ANALYSIS OF RESOURCES, EFFECTIVENESS AND NEEDS (CHILDREN
The CHILDREN Initiative, in partnership with Mathematica, builds on the lessons of CCOULD to link child welfare and Medicaid data, and also support states in developing analytics to advance key policy priorities.
BRIEF: BEHAVIORAL HEALTH TREATMENT BY SERVICE TYPE AND RACE AND ETHNICITY FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH INVOLVED WITH THE CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM
This brief describes national trends in receipt of key behavioral health service types for Medicaid beneficiaries in the child welfare population and other beneficiaries, characterizes racial/ethnic differences in service utilization for the child welfare population compared to their non-child welfare peers, and discusses implications for future research and policy planning related to ongoing disparities among youth of color.
You can see the full White House announcement here
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