Child Welfare Policy Forecast
119th Congress, Trump Admin 2.0, and IV-B Deep Dive
Welcome, Wonks!
As always, this is for all of you working on federal policies impacting children and families in or likely to enter the child welfare system.
Please share with anyone who would be interested!
As the new Trump Admin begins and the 119th Congress gets going full swing, I will share a forecast, do a IV-B deep dive, and share some new wonkariffic data. Let’s go!
Child Welfare Forecast
There are several big areas of likely policy that will impact child welfare, including:
Budget Reconciliation
Reconciliation allows enactment of legislation without the Senate filibuster.
It has complex rules for what can go in (basically, it has to change taxes or spending).
Reconciliation will rely on spending cuts to fund new investments (e.g. extending expiring 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax cuts).
You can see what’s under consideration with this list from the U.S. House Budget Committee.
Last week we looked at the array of federal programs that fund child welfare services. Several of those could face cuts like:
Reducing by 10% Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
TANF is 19% of federal child welfare spending.
A 10% cut would reduce TANF by $15 billion over 10 years.
The proposal would also eliminating the TANF contingency fund, cutting $6 billion over 10 years.
Eliminating the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG)
SSBG is 10% of federal child welfare spending.
Eliminating it would cut $15 billion over 10 years .
Significant cuts and changes to Medicaid
Medicaid is 7% of federal child welfare spending, & covers nearly all children in foster care.
There are many complex changes under consideration, which together would cut trillions over 10 years.
Whatever your view of these programs and reconciliation writ large, these possible cuts raise significant implications for child welfare policy.
Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA/Family First) Implementation and Beyond
I would love to believe Family First just happened. The white hairs annexing my beard say otherwise. This law somehow turns seven (!) next month.
This major law updated child welfare financing to
Support services to prevent unnecessary foster care;
Promote placement with relatives when it is necessary;
Promote family foster care when a relative is unavailable; and
Reform institutional settings to ensure quality and appropriateness.
Congress and the Trump Administration will want to understand more about how it’s going to inform what comes next.
Yes, a deep dive on Family First is on the Child Welfare Wonk coming soon list!
FY25 Appropriations (Yes, Still) and FY26 (Yes, Already) Appropriations
Much child welfare funding is mandatory (wonk-speak for programs that automatically get funding without Congressional action, like Title IV-E, parts of Title IV-B, Medicaid, and TANF).
But some is discretionary (wonk-speak for funds Congress appropriates annually, like CAPTA, SSBG, and parts of Title IV-B).
FY25 appropriations currently run through March 14th, so Congress will need to appropriate discretionary spending by then to avoid a shutdown.
FY26 begins October 1st, so at the same time FY25 appropriations are coming together, FY26 discussions will also be underway.
Administrative Policy
Beyond Congressional action, there is much Trump 2.0 can do.
First, personnel is policy.
Child welfare appointments, while near and dear to our hearts, tend not be “day one decisions” for any administration, so stay tuned…
Second, let’s nerd out a bit on the child welfare regulatory/sub-regulatory policy tools any administration has at hand:
Executive Orders: (AKA EOs). We will see many of these today, but child welfare is not likely to be a day 1 headline issue. These usually outline policy objectives and direct future regulatory action.
Regulatory Rulemaking: For the law nerds, it’s governed by the Administrative Procedures Act, requiring “notice and comment” process (aka public input before action). This is for major new policy.
Program Instructions (AKA PIs, alas the reality is less film noir): These tell grantees (e.g. child welfare agencies) the rules they must follow for programs and offer guidance on what they need to do.
Information Memoranda (or IMs, and please fellow Millennials, hold on the AIM away message jokes… ): These offer background or context to grantees. Unlike a PI they are not binding, but they still matter.
Child Welfare Policy Manual: Did you know that one of the most significant tools in federal child welfare policy is an antiquated looking website structured as an FAQ? You need to know the CWPM.
Oversight Tools: The Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), Annual Progress and Services Report (APSR), and other tools allow the federal government to monitor state and tribal policy implementation.
Other resources on potential priorities for the next administration:
Naomi Schaefer Riley of AEI has this interview with Lynn Johnson,Trump 1.0 Asst. Secy. of the Administration for Children and Families.
She previews expanding faith-based partnerships, promoting permanency for youth, and reconsidering Biden Administration rules.
Trump 1.0 HHS alum Roger Severino authored the HHS section of Project 2025, which proposes:
Expediting termination of parental rights to facilitate more adoptions;
Expanding religious exemptions for faith-based service providers;
Allowing CAPTA and IV-B funds to support marriage promotion; and
Launching a public messaging campaign on responsible fatherhood.
Child Welfare Wonk will delve more deeply into many of these topics as they develop.
Weekly Wonky Deep Dive: Title IV-B
So we just had a huge bipartisan victory for children and families with enactment of Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act (P.L. 118-258). Woohoo!
But…what is Title IV-B anyway? Well, let’s wonk out together!
It’s hard to find a more objectively terrible name; it conjures memories of elementary school Roman numerals lessons and that most quintessentially 80s of Rocky movies.
Like so much law pertaining to health and human services, we find ourselves in the Social Security Act, which includes the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant (Title V), Medicaid (Title XIX), the Social Services Block Grant (Title XX), and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Title XXI). Wonks like to refer to things as “Title _____”.
Title IV of the Social Security Act is a major bedrock of federal child welfare law and financing, in particular, Parts A (the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families/TANF program), B (AKA our friend Title IV-B), and E (the BIG child welfare $).
Title IV-B has two key parts:
Subpart 1: Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services Program. This provides a flexible discretionary investment each year (authorized at $325 million annually, but most recently appropriated at $269 million in FY24) for states and tribes.
These funds come with an array of expectations for policy and practice which states and tribes must demonstrate through plans they update every five years.
These are the plans that under PACSFA will now require input from people who have experienced the child welfare system. PACSFA also requires the plans to be publicly available.
The challenge is that the ability to implement a plan with fidelity is often a function of available resources, so we can charitably describe those plans as… aspirational.
Subpart 2: MaryLee Allen1 Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) Program.
PSSF is flexible and has two flavors of funding:
Mandatory:
$345 million annually, until enactment of this latest reauthorization.
Because it’s mandatory, it comes each year without Congressional action
Discretionary:
Authorized at $200 million annually.
As it implies, funding is at Congress’ discretion, which must act annually.
Most recently they provided $73 million in FY2024.
It focuses on the key priorities of:
Family support (help families before they experience a crisis);
Family preservation (help families in crisis avoid foster care);
Family reunification (support families in healing after foster care); and
Adoption promotion and support (make adoption easier and help adoptive families).
It also funds the Court Improvement Program (the only federal program for nearly 600,000 children’s cases annually) and the Regional Partnership Grants (RPG) that address how parental substance use drives child welfare involvement.
PACSFA emphasizes the role of PSSF in keeping families together, both before maltreatment occurs, to avoid unnecessary foster care, and to support kin when it is necessary.
Jurisdictions also use public-private partnerships with PSSF. That can make it easier to engage families suspicious of help from the agency that can take their children.
Why Wonky Words Matter for Funding
Last week we talked about the marquee takeaway of the Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act (P.L. 118-258)- $75 million more in annual mandatory funding for IV-B. Why does that matter?
In inflation-adjusted terms, funding for IV-B reached over $1 billion in FY 2004 and has been decreasing steadily since, most recently to $710 million in FY 2024.2 The bipartisan willingness to make these new investments is significant.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is the non-partisan scorekeeper of federal legislation. Congress typically “offsets” spending by cutting elsewhere or raising revenue, what we DC nerds call a “pay-for”.
CBO thinks in 10-year windows. Once Congress provides 10 full years of funding, it’s permanent. It becomes part of the CBO “baseline”, which projects assumed spending. It then becomes permanent, so you don’t need to pay for it ever again.
Congress not only reauthorized IV-B with new funding, but spread it over a 10-year window so it got into the baseline, so that new funding is permanent!3
Data Drop: FY23 Maltreatment #s
We have some new data to discuss: the 2023 Child Maltreatment Report.
The 34th4 in the series, this annually report relies on voluntary National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System reporting, which this year includes all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico.
Child Maltreatment/NCANDS data come with an asterisk because they’re voluntary, but they’re the best we have for estimating things like how many children actually experience abuse or neglect each year (546,159 in FY23) and how many children die each year from maltreatment (2,000 in FY23).
This handy exhibit also walks you through the process from a phone call to a CPS hotline onward, with stats at each level.
That’s it for today with Child Welfare Wonk. Thanks, wonks, for reading, and see you next week!
RIP to one of the most incredible child welfare policy experts, advocates, and mentors many of us had the privilege to learn from.
You can also see more about how jurisdictions use IV-B funds in this ChildTrends resource on IV-B.
If you really want to nerd out, here’s the CBO score of the original IV-B reauthorization as it was making its way through the U.S. House, and the CBO score of the child-support enforcement reforms that ultimately became the “pay-for”. Congress eventually combined them into one bill.
That’s also why you usually see me refer to the Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act; the combined bill is technically the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act, but I find it narratively clearer and more accurate to keep the name when talking IV-B, since most of the time I am talking about child welfare services and not the arcana of taxpayer information access rules for child support enforcement.
Thank you for all this crucial wonky detail! Yes, let’s push on FFPSA needed changes.
The blog we've needed for so long -- THANK YOU!