On September 30, 2011 authorization for Title IV-B of the Social Security Act expires. The original legislation for Title IV-B, subpart 1 was first introduced in 1980, creating a discretionary funding program that put into place requirements for states that included case plans, case reviews, permanency reviews, program development, agency administration and systems collaboration activities. Now some 30 years later, Title IV-B has evolved in response to ongoing issues identified in the child welfare system. The bill (HR 2790) extends authorization for Title IV-B, Part I, Child Welfare Services, and Part II, Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) through 2016.
Funding for HR 2790 continues the funding level at $325 million and adds additional requirements to identify emotional trauma needs associated with maltreatment and removal, oversight of prescription medication monitoring protocols, strategies to reduce time in foster care and addressing the development needs for children younger than five. The bill also modifies the monthly caseworker visit requirement. Prior authorization required caseworkers to attain the goal of 90 percent of children in foster care to be visited monthly. While HR 2790 maintains the 90 percent goal, it also creates a tiered reduction in federal financial participation for non-compliance. The new legislation requires that the total visits in a year equal to a monthly visit. A penalty will also be accrued when a caseworker fails to complete a minimum of 50 percent of the visits in the child’s home.
PSSF legislation continues to designate the four categories of services which are family support, family preservation, time-limited reunification and adoption promotion and support. The funding is distributed to the states as both mandatory ($345 million) and discretionary ($200 million). The bill clarifies that court improvement plans should include requirements related to concurrent planning and specifies when the court expedite termination of parental rights in certain egregious situations. The legislation returns the appropriation for Mentoring Children of Prisoners which was zeroed out in the FY 2011 approved budget at $25 million each year through 2016.
The legislation also add Part III to Title IV-B titled “Common Provisions” which specifies data standardization for improved data matching. This part also requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to determine critical data elements for any category of information required to be under IV-B. Lastly, HR 2790 adds a requirement for HHS to study the state of recruiting and supporting foster parents, adoptive parents and kinship caregivers.
