Bipartisan Approval of the Protecting America’s Children Act

On July 24, 2024, the House Ways and Means Committee unanimously approved H.R. 9076, the Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act. Sponsored by Reps. Darin LaHood (R-IL) and Danny Davis (D-IL), the committee leaders’ bill to reauthorize Title IV-B of the Social Security Act draws on 16 bipartisan bills introduced in recent weeks.  

At the legislative markup, Rep. LaHood summarized the committee’s yearlong effort to develop their Title IV-B reauthorization bill by hearing from stakeholders, holding numerous hearings, and working in a bipartisan way: “The fact that the issue of child welfare, and this bill in particular, can be reflective of the values and priorities of so many of the different members of this committee from all degrees on the political spectrum really speaks volumes to this issue and to the work the committee has put in.”  He described the objectives of the reauthorization bill as:   

• Supporting early intervention to keep families together whenever possible and reduce the need for foster care 

• Removing ineffective requirements and ensuring state accountability  

• Freeing up more time for caseworkers to focus on families by reducing administrative burdens 

• Expanding access to tribal communities by streamlining funding  

• Building support systems for 2.5 million grandparents and relatives serving as kinship caregivers  

• Strengthening post-adoptive services to ensure children waiting for adoption find stable families 

BPC fellow Rob Geen testified at a recent Ways and Means hearing and shared input on Title IV-B reauthorization. His testimony highlighted the bipartisan legislative history of federal child welfare policy, described data and key policy trends, and shared key findings from BPC’s child welfare landscape assessment.  

“Bipartisanship has been a defining feature of federal child welfare legislation for decades. Between 1980 and 2018, Congress passed more than a dozen significant bipartisan legislative reforms to help ensure that children have safe, stable families and to improve our nation’s child welfare system. All of these reforms are examples of significant bipartisan agreement.” – Rob Geen  

Child welfare policymaking should account for the social and economic complexities that underpin the diverse array of challenges that exist for children and families. Nationally, about 7.5 million children a year are the subject of a report to child protective services, meaning that someone placed a call to report suspected abuse or neglect. Other data suggest that as many as 4% of children in the United States experience maltreatment in a year, with an estimated 35% to 38% of U.S. children experiencing some type of maltreatment before the age of 18.   

The Title IV-B program is one of several key federal programs that states rely on to finance their child welfare systems and it represents a relatively small portion of the $31 billion spent annually by child welfare agencies. 

A number of provisions in the bill align with BPC’s high priorities in the child welfare field, including: 

• Reauthorizing Title IV-B, Subpart 1 and Subpart 2, extending the discretionary funds for both subparts and increasing mandatory funding for Subpart 2 in FY 2026-2029. [Section 3] 

• Enhancing the Court Improvement Program by emphasizing implementation of best practices, compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act, and increasing funding to be used for technology to conduct remote hearings and continuity of court services. [Section 4] 

• Focusing on treatment needs of families and youth due to mental health challenges and substance use disorders, including provisions to update and fund Regional Partnership Grants [Section 5] and adding requirements to the existing Heath Coordination and Oversight Plans to better address the mental health needs of youth, including requirements around youth consent to psychotropic medications. [Section 6]   

• Streamlining and increasing funding for Indian tribes and requiring HHS, in consultation with tribal organizations, to develop a plan for technical assistance to support effective implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act [Section 7]  

• Accelerating access to Family First Prevention Services by providing targeted funds for program evaluations that will lead to a broader array of evidence-based programs in the Clearinghouse. [Section 8] 

• Requiring state child welfare agencies to improve consultation with and involvement of families and youth with lived experience in the child welfare system in planning processes. States must make publicly accessible a report describing how they implemented feedback from families and youth. [Section 9] 

• Recognizing the importance of kinship caregivers and permitting IV-B funds to support additional services for kinship caregivers such as peer-to-peer mentoring, respite care, and family preservations services. [Section 10] 

• Addressing economic issues of struggling families by permitting Title IV-B funds to be used for nonrecurring, short-term benefits that address a specific crisis, situation or event affecting the ability of a child to remain with family. Requires agencies to describe their policies on reporting and investigation to prevent the separation of a child and parent solely on the basis of poverty and how the state makes available short-term benefits to address a family’s crisis. [Section 11] 

• Strengthening the role of caseworkers with dedicated funds to reduce caseload rations, increase retention, recruitment and training, enhance safety, and other purposes. [Section 12]