The Family First Act has become law! This is a very big deal for our caseworker colleagues who work in teen pregnancy and parenting. It represents the biggest change to the structure of federal child welfare finance since the establishment of the Title IV-E entitlement in 1980.
What’s the Big Deal?
The Family First Act reflects, not only a change in federal funding priorities, but also a fundamental change in how our society sees its duty toward children at risk. Essentially, it reverses a thirty-year child welfare trend of using the foster care system as the first and only line of defense.
- The Family First Act is aimed at amending the IV-E entitlement to provide more federal resources to help families in crisis stay together and limit federal funds for putting foster youth into congregate care placements, including group homes.
- The central feature of the bill is that states will now be able to use funds derived from Title IV-E of the Social Security Act – the entitlement that pays for child welfare – for “time-limited” services aimed at preventing the use of foster care in maltreatment cases. Currently, IV-E is only allowable for spending on foster care placements and for assistance to adoptive families.
What Are “Time Limited” Services?
Time Limited services are the services that support troubled teen parents and enable them, with family support, to continue parenting rather than immediately removing “children at risk” to foster care. So-called “time limited” services include:
- Services to address mental health challenges
- Substance abuse treatment
- In-home parent skill-based programs
Who is Eligible for Services?
- Parents or relatives caring for children who are “candidates for foster care”- (defined as children who would have to enter care but don’t “as long as” Family First Act services are made available).
- Youth in foster care who are pregnant or already parents. For pregnant teens, a strategy must have a list of services for the youth, and the “foster care prevention” strategy for any child born to them.
- There is a long list of requirements for this plan, but in a nutshell, states must show in writing that they have a system for choosing, implementing and evaluating the time-limited services and that caseworkers are trained to administer them.
When Will This New Law Take Affect?
The new funding kicks in October of 2019. Plans for HHS to develop technical assistance and a clearinghouse are effective already, with the earliest deadlines for rule making coming in October of 2018.
What Case Workers Are Saying
“There are always nay-sayers and nothing the federal government does is ever perfect, but this shift in how we interact with troubled teen parents is, I think, more compassionate and less punitive. We will work out the kinks over time as long as we maintain a caring, non-judgmental attitude.”
“The old system of immediately housing ‘children at risk’ in foster care is simply unsustainable. The numbers are too large. This encouragement from the federal government inspires us to renew our efforts to help the young women in our care pull themselves together and hopefully grow to become responsible and loving parents. They need our help. They cannot do it alone. I think this is a step in the right direction.”
