Policy Explainer Redux: Title IV-B
Implementing the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act
Policy Explainer Redux: Title IV-B
Implementing the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act
At the end of 2024, Congress passed the biggest reauthorization in decades of Title IV-B of the Social Security Act, a child welfare law providing states flexible funding.
Signed into law in early January, the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act(P.L. 118-258) retools federal expectations and provides important policy signals.
It also comes with $75M in new annual funding, which comes online on October 1.
The Latest ACF Action
On June 18, the Administration for Children and Families issued an Information Memorandum on the Title IV-B reauthorization.
An Information Memorandum is one of ACF’s tools for communicating non-binding information to states.
What to Expect
A Program Instruction, a policy guidance document that will detail how to access the law’s expanded funds, and provide an official state-by-state distribution table.
The closest thing currently is this report from the Congressional Research Service, which came before enactment of the law.
As implementation looms closer, here’s a look at what matters most for child welfare systems, agency leaders, funders, and policy strategists.
IV-B’s Core Structural Tension
Title IV-B comes with significant policy and reporting requirements, and only 4% of all federal child welfare funding.
That tension is at the heart of Title IV-B. It’s the rate limiting function for its impact.
It’s how a policy shifts from aspirational incentive during Congressional markup, to conditional formatting in a state budget office spreadsheet.
If you’re a staffer or advocate who has always wondered why changes you’ve secured in IV-B over the years don’t fundamentally change systems on the ground, this is why.
Understanding that balance provides insight about how to strategically orient to this latest reauthorization without over- or under-indexing to any single aspect.
BLUF: Show Me the Money
IV-B provides a mixture of mandatory and discretionary funds across its two subparts.
Subpart 1: Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services Program
Authorized at $325 million annually
Most recently appropriated at $269 million
Subpart 2: MaryLee Allen Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) Program
Discretionary funding
Authorized at $200M annually
Most recently appropriated at $73M.
Mandatory funding
Was $345M annually
Will now rise to $420M annually starting this October.
What follows is a rundown of its key policy changes.
For each, bear in mind the limits that come with the law’s core structural tension.
Clearer Prevention and Kinship Emphasis
The law clarifies that family resource centers and peer support are eligible for Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) funding.
Similarly, the law provides clarity that kinship caregivers are eligible for IV-B services.
The combination of clarity and new funds could new make these easier to implement.
Ensuring Poverty Alone Does not Drive Neglect
To ensure poverty alone does not lead to children entering foster care, states have increasingly implemented policies to clarify that poverty is not neglect.
Now that is part of federal law, too.
Workforce: From Punitive Oversight to Targeted Support
The law provides flexibility and funding boosts:
Boosting monthly caseworker visit funding by 30 percent, to $26M;
Allowing optional virtual caseworker visits for youth in extended foster care;
Ending federal financial penalties for missed monthly visits.
This is a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to Title IV-E administrative funding, which is the core federal tool for child welfare workforce funding.
But moving from penalties to flexibility here could have effects beyond the funds themselves.
Planning with User-Centered Design
States and Tribes must now consult youth, parents, kin, and caregivers with lived experience in the child welfare system when developing their Title IV-B plans.
While many states had already begun doing this, it’s the first such federal requirement in IV-B.
Standardizing it in this way opens up formal processes for interested stakeholders to be part of those discussions.
Plans Must Be Public and Comparable
This is a deep cut that punches above its weight class. For the first time ever, states must post their Title IV-B plans online in standardized formats.
HHS must create national comparisons and summaries. This opens the door for meaningful cross-jurisdictional benchmarking; expect more maps and charts here.
Child Welfare Policy and the Legal System
The law provides an additional $10M to the Court Improvement Program, for a total of $40M starting in October.
This is the only direct child welfare related federal funding for courts to manage nearly 600,000 children’s cases annually.
States also must describe how they ensure availability of information about independent legal representation in child welfare proceedings for children and their parents or guardians.
Expanding Multi-Systems Responses to Parental Substance Use
The Regional Partnership Grant (RPG) program funds multi-disciplinary collaboration to address the role of parental substance use in driving child welfare involvement.
Under the new law, RPGs receive an increase in annual funding from $20M to $30M.
This opens the door to expanding RPGs and further developing programs to target this primary driver of child welfare involvement.
Reducing Administrative Burden
HHS must streamline Title IV-B data reporting, to reduce administrative burden by 15% within three years.
Final Recalibration
IV-B matters, but is constrained by the tension between its funding and policy aspirations.
Recognizing this, we’ve tapped former leader to see how they would implement it.