TWIW: Child Welfare Reform Agreement Underway

November 20, 2015

Volume XXXIX No. 34

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BREAKING NEWS: APHSA has learned Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have a bipartisan agreement on child welfare reform legislation and are working towards Senate Finance consideration of that proposal this year. APHSA will share more information as soon as it becomes available.

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Congress Feels Time Crunch on Appropriations Bill

House appropriators are working hard to create a catch-all spending bill for the rest of fiscal year 2016. The current continuing resolution expires on December 11, 2015. However, the process currently going on may not yield am omnibus appropriations bill that Congress will be able to pass or the president will be able to sign.

House leaders have asked members to provide suggestions for so-called "riders" to the appropriations bill. These riders are generally legislative add-ons that add or eliminate funding for certain programs, or specify how funds should be spent.

The problem is that many of the riders that are being proposed have been called "non-starters" by some in House minority leadership. These includes efforts to defund some women's health services, undo certain environmental regulations promulgated by the Obama administration, or limit the administration's ability to admit Syrian and Iraqi refugees to the United States.

Hal Rogers (R-KY), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, believes firmly that each subcommittee will be able to complete their sections of the omnibus appropriations bill by today (Friday, November 20) and that any decisions that can't be worked out will be settled by the subcommittee chairmen and ranking Democrats in the next few weeks.

Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the House Minority Whip, has said that he believes it will be nearly impossible to pass an appropriations bill by the December 11 deadline because there is no agreement on exactly how much funding each subcommittee has to work with. Without that agreement, it will be impossible for appropriations subcommittees like the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee to make decisions about how much funding should go to any of the agencies and programs for which they are responsible .

The American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) will continue to monitor the appropriations process and to provide you with the most up to date information available. We hope in the next several days to obtain funding levels for various departments and programs that are important to you, and once we do we will provide you with that information.

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House Agriculture Committee Holds Hearing on SNAP

On Wednesday, November 18 the House Agriculture Committee held another hearing in its series, "Past, Present, and Future of SNAP," which it describes as a comprehensive examination of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The committee invited testimony from the co-chairs of the National Commission on Hunger, Mariana Chilton, associate professor at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University, and Robert Doar, Morgridge Fellow in Poverty Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

The commission intends to present a full picture of hunger in America in a report it will soon submit to Congress. The report will recommend solutions that it hopes Congress will carefully consider. This hearing provided an update on their work.

Chilton and Doar named underemployment and unemployment as primary causes of hunger, and focused many of their remarks on the need for SNAP to more comprehensively address work and job training. They called on Congress and the president to lead a comprehensive effort for cross-sector and cross-agency collaboration to address these and the other root causes of hunger.

In their questions to the witnesses, some Agriculture Committee members voiced concerns over the expiration of SNAP work requirement waivers that could cause able-bodied SNAP recipients in many states to lose benefits next year. The commission's work has not included attention to this population so no conclusions were drawn as to the effect of the change on hunger among them.

The written testimony can be found at: http://agriculture.house.gov/uploadedfiles/11.18.15_chilton_and_doar_testimony.pdf

Human Resources Subcommittee Holds Final Hearing on the Nation's Safety-Net

On Tuesday, November 17, the Subcommittee on Human Resources held the final hearing in its series reviewing the nation's safety net and how federal policies can better help people move out of poverty and up the economic ladder.

The hearing, titled "Lessons Learned from Welfare Reforms in Other Countries," looked at how other developed countries have modernized their safety net, the lessons they have learned, and how the United States can use those lessons to inform the reform of our own safety net system. The hearing included testimony from representatives from the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, the Center for American Progress's Poverty to Prosperity Program, and Cornell University's College of Human Ecology.

The committee is accepting public submissions for the record. Witnesses' written testimony and instructions for submitting comments can be found here. Video recording of the hearing can be viewed here .

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Congressional Briefing on Investing in Permanency and Adoption

On Tuesday, November 17, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute and Casey Family Programs hosted a briefing on adoption and permanency for youth in out of home placements.

Barbara Needell, consultant with Casey Family Programs, presented national data on child welfare involved children and noted that 88 percent of youth who leave foster care each year exit to permanency (returning home or to a relative/kin, or adoption).

Nicole Dobbins, executive director of Voice for Adoption, stressed the need for increased investments for post adoption services, sharing that the majority of kids adopted from the child welfare system are adopted by foster parents (52 percent) and 32 percent are adopted by relatives. She further noted that the majority of adoptive parents are low to middle income, resulting in 91 percent of these families receiving a Title IV-E adoption subsidy.

Jennifer Justice, deputy director of Children and Families, Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services and Wanda Marino, assistant director of Social Services, New Hanover County, NC presented the state and local agency perspective on permanency and adoption. Justice, who also serves on the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators (NAPCWA) Executive Committee, discussed the Wendy's Wonderful Kids program, which provides targeted recruiters who focus on finding permanent homes for youth.

These efforts show that kids between the ages of 9-18 are three times more likely to be adopted. She also discussed the success with Permanency Roundtables (an intensive case management process to expedite permanency) and an expansion of the state's Connecting the Dots pilot program. Marino noted the county's focus on applying a two generations approach to securing permanency, highlighting the need to increase and improve access to appropriate mental health and substance abuse interventions for parents. These supportive services increase the likelihood for children to return home (and in some instances maintain the family structure with intensive wrap-around services). The final panelist, Leah Gurowitz, spoke about her experience from mentoring a young man through her adopting him and how the District of Columbia's Family and Youth Initiative provides critical post adoptive services.

Through a number of federal programs, state and local child welfare agencies continue to improve efforts to ensure children are safe, parents and caregivers are supported so that children can return home and when this isn't possible, work expeditiously to find loving permanent families.

In 2016, the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) and our NAPCWA affiliate will work with stakeholders and policy makers to reauthorize the Promoting Safe and Stable and Adoption Incentives programs, critical to helping adoptive families through the pre- and post-adoptive phases.

News Clips

Child Care/Child Abuse

Budget-Busting Childcare Costs Are Talk of the Campaign Trail

Colo. OKs Radon Testing Requirements For Childcare Facilities

Ill. Child Care Assistance Bill Fails in House by One Vote

Adoption & Foster Care

Programs Helping People Who 'Age Out' of Foster Care System

How Adoption in America Has Changed Over 60 Years

Children Sleeping In Ark. DHS Offices Because Of Foster Care Challenges

Health and Mental Health Care

5 Stocks Hurt Most By Obamacare Shocker

New Research: Affordable Care Act Not Working As Intended