Child Welfare News
....Trump 47 and other happenings.
President Trump took office this week with a flurry of executive orders and actions, a few of which will affect child welfare and child protection policies. Chief among them is the President’s executive order on gender ideology. Although the executive order itself does not address child welfare issues, it almost certainly precedes revocation of Biden-era regulatory guidance on placement and accommodation of children who identify as nonbinary or as the opposite sex. The administration’s focus on biological sex over gender identity will likely impact disputes around the country regarding the free exercise rights of foster parents, the removal to foster care of children due to parental disagreement over medical treatment to alter gender characteristics, and the viability of state laws providing “sanctuary” for youth seeking gender-altering medical treatment. Because states are dependent on federal funding for child welfare and foster care services, a change in how the administration views these issues and how it oversees state child welfare agencies can make a big impact.
In the news:
Lynn Johnson, who led federal child welfare efforts during the first Trump Administration, shared her thoughts on what to expect from the next four years.
There’s an interesting discussion from WBUR’s On Point this week discussing child welfare and the new IV-B reauthorization. One of the commentators is Zach Laris, who has a new Substack out focused on child welfare policy.
A foster parent was murdered and another shot by a mother in Michigan. The assailant had lost parental rights to several other children and had threated to take this child, who was being cared for by the couple.
Amanda Whittle has served for the past six years as South Carolina’s first State Child Advocate. Her term ends soon, and the State is looking for an experienced, SC-licensed child welfare attorney to assume the role.
Chris Stoner-Mertz has a good article in The Imprint regarding the serious problems obtaining liability insurance that child-serving agencies are facing. She focuses on California, but it’s a nationwide issue.
While foster care populations have dropped in most states over the past few years, Maine’s grew 40% between 2018 and 2022 to the highest levels in decades.
It appears that Mississippi is now struggling with an influx of high-acuity children and youth into its foster care system, a problem that CPS Commissioner Andrea Sanders says is overwhelming the agency and resulting in children sleeping in offices and hotels.
Why didn’t they think of this earlier? In Washington State, there’s a bill pending that would provide housing vouchers for youth in extended foster care. It seems there was a catch-22 — to get a housing voucher, you had to exit the extended foster care program.
New Mexico is experiencing a 30% turnover rate in its child welfare workforce. And as my friends at the New Mexico Child First Network have alerted me, there’s a legislative effort afoot to reform the state’s troubled child welfare agency.
A new bill in Congress aims to improve foster parent recruitment and retention through the collection of more data.