Promoting Safe and Stable Families

Law/ Source

Promoting Safe and Stable Families - Title IV-B of the Social Security Act - The intent is to encourage child welfare agencies to form partnerships with private and public agencies so that a wide array of community based family support services will be available to assist families to stay together. This was previously known as Family Preservation and Support Services.

What it Funds

Family Support Services

• To assist families to prevent child abuse and neglect
• Family preservation services that prevent placement in foster care
• Family reunification services (up to 15 months)
• To promote adoption when reunification is not possible.

Population served and/or eligibility criteria

Children and families who are vulnerable to break up due to allegations of abuse and neglect or families that have a child in care and need support to be reunified with them.

How to Access

Must be requested by the state in their five- year child welfare plans. These services grants are capped allocations to states and are based on the size of the states under aged 21 populations and it's per capita income. Individual children do not have to meet any federal eligibility requirements.

Title IV - E

Law/ Source

Title IV - E of the Social Security Act - This is the largest federal funding stream for Child Welfare services. The bulk of the funding is dedicated to providing out-of-home care.

What it Funds

Provides uncapped funding for:

• Room and board for foster care
• Subsidized adoption of children with special needs
• Training for child welfare staff, foster and adoptive parents
• Statutory protections for children

        Administrative costs.

Population served and/or eligibility criteria

These funds are available only for children from low-income families (those families that meet the income test for Aid to Families with Dependent Children - now TANF). These children must be in foster homes or private or public child caring institutions,

How to Access

In order to access these funds States must establish programs that:

• Secure permanent families for children
• Implement procedures such as case plans, regulated case reviews, and permanency hearings
• Serve children in their own homes
• Prevent out of home placements
• Facilitate reunification after placement
• Make reasonable efforts to prevent or eliminate the need for children to be removed from their homes and for them to be returned home.

Title IV - E Waiver

Law/ Source

Title IV - E Waiver -established by the 1996 federal welfare reform law and expanded in 1997 by the Adoptions and Safe Families Act

What it Funds

Designed to give states greater flexibility in the use of IV-E funds to test new and creative ways to fund and deliver community-based child welfare services. These services should prevent placement, provide permanency for children in foster care, and serve children and families that do not meet IV - E eligibility requirements.

Population served and/or eligibility criteria

Up to 20 waivers are competitively available to applicants that submit proposals which:

• Identify and address substance abuse problems that endanger children and result in placement;
• Address barriers to the adoption of children in foster care; and
• Address kinship care.

How to Access

Annual requests for proposals are made by the Department of Health and Human Services.  Some states have received multiple grants.

John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program

Law/ Source

John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Law (1999). It doubled the federal funding available for independent living programs from $70 million annually to $140 million.

What it Funds

Enhances the opportunities for youth in the foster care component of child welfare to make a smoother, more successful transition to adulthood by creating the following opportunities for states:

• To extend Medicaid to independent youth who were in care on their 18 birthday, have left care, but are under 21 years of age;
• To provide up to 30% of their allocation for room and board for youth who have left care because they reached age 18;
• To use a portion of the allocation for assistance and services for young people who have left foster care because they reached age 18;
• To allow young people to have up to $10,000. in assets and remain eligible for IV-E funded foster care;

Population served and/or eligibility criteria

Youth aged 16 to 21 in Foster Care and young adults 18 to 21 who have recently left Foster Care.

How to Access

States may submit one application for funds for a period of five consecutive years.  In addition, states are required:

• To use IV-E funds to train foster and adoptive parents, workers in group homes, and case managers to understand and address the issues confronting adolescents preparing for independent living;
• To certify that it has consulted and coordinated it's new program with other federal and state program as well as private organizations and Indian tribes; and
• To allow young people to participate directly in designing their program activities.

Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)

Law/ Source

 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 created the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. This program has four statutory purposes:

• To provide assistance to needy families so that the children may be cared for in their homes or in the homes of relatives;
• To end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage;
• To prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies; and
• To encourage the formation and maintenance of two parent families.

What it Funds

It replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and primarily funds monthly grants to families in need of public assistance. This funding is no longer an entitlement and has five - year lifetime eligibility and a work requirement for recipients.

A statutory mandate that is shared by both TANF and Child Welfare is:

• To provide assistance to needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives.

 This requirement allows some flexibility to fill gaps in child welfare programs. Since program implementation in 1996 program funds have been used by states to fund:

• Home-visiting
• Parenting education
• Family Preservation
• Family Support
• Substance abuse treatment
• Subsidized guardianships and other kinship services

This represents a limited list of options.

Population served and/or eligibility criteria

The 1996 legislation allows states to spend federal TANF funds ' in any manner that is reasonably calculated to accomplish the statutory purposes of TANF". (See purposes under Law/Source)

How to Access

Each state welfare agency submits a five-year plan to the Department of Health and Human Services, which outlines how they will meet the statutory mandates.