Order Code RL33354
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
The Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program:
Reauthorization in the 109th Congress
Updated September 25, 2006
Emilie Stoltzfus
Specialist in Social Legislation
Domestic Social Policy Division
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

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The Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program:
Reauthorization in the 109th Congress
Summary
Funding authorization for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF)
program (Title IV-B, Subpart 2 of the Social Security Act) is set to expire with
FY2006. States must use funds under this program for each of four broadly defined
categories of services to children and families: community-based family support,
family preservation, time-limited reunification, and adoption promotion and support.
On September 20, 2006, the Senate, by unanimous consent, approved an
amended version of the Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 (S.
3525). It would extend the funding authorization of the Promoting Safe and
Stable Families program for five years (FY2007-FY2011) and annually target the
use of $40 million in new funds for the program for two purposes: to support
monthly caseworker visits and to improve outcomes for children affected by
methamphetamine or other substance abuse. Further, it would require states to
report on their actual use of funds under the program, increase funds set aside for
tribal child and family services, and allow access to these funds for more tribes.
Separately, the bill would amend the Child Welfare Services program (Title
IV-B, Subpart 1 of the Social Security Act) to re-organize and update its provisions
and to limit funding authorization to FY2007-FY2011. Beginning with FY2008, it
would limit the use of Child Welfare Service funds for administrative purposes to no
more than 10%, and would prohibit their use for foster care maintenance payments,
adoption assistance payments, and child care above a state’s use of the program’s
funds for those purposes in FY2005. Further, it would add several plan
requirements: states would have to 1) describe how they consult with medical
professionals to assess the health of and provide medical treatment to children in
foster care, 2) have procedures to respond to and maintain services in the wake of a
disaster, and 3) describe their standards for content and frequency of caseworker
visits of children in foster care. Finally, it would provide that caseworker visits of
children in foster care may occur no less frequently than once a month and would
require states to meet that standard or face fiscal penalty.
The bill would also extend authorization for five years (FY2007-FY2011) of the
the Mentoring Children of Prisoners program, and includes authority for a project
to demonstrate the effectiveness of vouchers as a method of delivering these services.
Further, it would extend for five years (FY2007-FY2011) certain grants under the
Court Improvement Program.
Many of these provisions were included in legislation previously passed by the
House (July 25) and Senate (July 13). The House legislation, also titled the Child
and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006, had been reported by the Ways and
Means Committee as H.R. 5640 (H.Rept. 109-555). The Senate legislation, titled the
Improving Outcomes for Children Affected by Meth Act of 2006, was reported by
the Senate Finance Committee as S. 3525 (S.Rept. 109-269). This report tracks
legislation reauthorizing the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program in the 109th
Congress, and describes the program. It will be updated.

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Contents
Provisions of the Proposed Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Funding Reauthorization and Amendment
of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Expanded limitation on administrative spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Reporting on use of funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Targeting the Use of New Promoting Safe and
Stable Families Program Funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Support for monthly caseworker visits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Grants to Increase the Well-Being of and Improve
the Permanency for Children Affected by
Methamphetamine or Other Substance Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Evaluation of targeted spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Tribal Promoting Safe and Stable Families
Program Funding and Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Amendments to the Child Welfare Services Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Limitation on Administrative Spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Revised Limitation on Use of Federal Funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Limit on use of non-federal (matching) funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
State Plan Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Monthly Caseworker Visit Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Publication of state visitation rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Mentoring Children of Prisoners Reauthorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Extension of the Court Improvement Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Court Consultation with Child/Youth
in Permanency Review Proceedings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Funding for the Safe and Stable Families Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Total FY2007 funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Level of Discretionary Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Reauthorization Activity in the 109th Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
President’s Budget Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Legislative History of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program . . . . . . 12
Original Enactment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
ASFA Amendments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2001 Amendments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Changes Made by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Current PSSF Law and Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Service Categories Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Service Category Overlap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
State Planned Spending by Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Effectiveness of Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Intensive Family Preservation Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

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Family Support Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Other Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Planning and Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Limited Information on Current Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Reporting Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Distribution of Funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
State Formula Allotment and Match . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Tribes and Territories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Evaluation, Research, Training, and Technical Assistance . . . . . . . . . 31
Court Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Other State Plan Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Selected Federal Funding Programs with Related Purposes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP) . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Child Welfare Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Other Child Welfare and Related Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Some Non-dedicated Federal Funding Used for PSSF Purposes . . . . 36
Allotment of PSSF Funds to States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
List of Tables
Table 1. Distribution of Targeted PSSF Funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Table 2. Total Funding Authorization and Appropriations
for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program,
FY1994-FY2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Table 3. Statutory Distribution of Funds for the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Table 4. Funding Provided for the Promoting Safe and
Stable Families Program, by Year and Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Table 5. Final FY2005 and Estimated FY2006 Allotments
of Promoting Safe and Stable Funds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Table 6. Selected Provisions of the Child and Family Services Act
of 2006 (S. 3525 as passed by the Senate on September 20)
compared to Current Law and Earlier Versions of S. 3525 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

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The Promoting Safe and Stable Families
Program: Reauthorization in
the 109th Congress
Funding authorization for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF)
program (Title IV-B, Subpart 2 of the Social Security Act) is set to expire with
FY2006. The program primarily provides formula grants to states, territories and
tribes for provision of four categories of services to children and families: family
support, family preservation, time-limited reunification, and adoption promotion and
support. In addition, a part of the total funding provided for the Safe and Stable
Families program is reserved for certain grants under the Court Improvement
Program (CIP). The CIP grants are distributed by formula to each eligible highest
state court, and are for those courts to assess and make improvements to their
handling of child welfare cases. Finally, funds are also set aside for evaluation,
research, and technical assistance related to the Safe and Stable Families program.
Initially created as a program of “Family Preservation and Support Services”
in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (P.L. 103-66), the program was
reauthorized, expanded, and given its current name by the Adoption and Safe
Families Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-89). Subsequently, Congress passed the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Amendments of 2001 (P.L. 107-133), which reauthorized
the program through FY2006. Most recently, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
(P.L. 109-171) increased the authorization for mandatory PSSF appropriations by $40
million for FY2006 and, separately, appropriated funding ($20 million for each of
FY2006-FY2010) for two new kinds of grants under the Court Improvement
Program. The Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees have
exercised jurisdiction over the program. Both committees held hearings related to
reauthorization of this program earlier this year.
On September 20, 2006, the Senate, by unanimous consent, amended and passed
the Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 (S. 3525). The bill would
amend and reauthorize the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program for five
years (FY2007-FY2011); amend the Child Welfare Services program (Title IV-B,
Subpart 1 of the Social Security Act); reauthorize and amend the Mentoring Children
of Prisoners program (Section 439 of the Social Security Act); extend certain funding
under the Court Improvement Act (Section 438 of the Social Security Act); and make
several related changes. The version of S. 3525 passed on September 20 in the
Senate incorporates provisions that were included in the Child and Family Services
Act of 2006 as it passed the House on July 25, 2006, and was earlier reported by the
House Ways and Means Committee (H.R. 5640, H.Rept. 109-555), as well as
provisions included in the Improving Outcomes for Children Affected by Meth Act
of 2006, which passed the Senate on July 13, 2006, and was earlier reported by the
Senate Finance Committee (S. 3525, S.Rept. 109-269).

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Provisions of the Proposed Legislation
The provisions of the Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 (S.
3525), as passed by the Senate on September 20, incorporates language approved in
two earlier bills (also numbered S. 3525). The following discussion describes
provisions of the current S. 3525. (For a comparison of selected provisions from
each of the current bills, see Table 6 at the end of the report.)
Funding Reauthorization and Amendment
of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program
Under current law, the Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) program
is authorized to receive mandatory appropriations of $345 million in FY2006 and
discretionary appropriations of $200 million. S. 3525 would extend these same
funding authorization levels to each of FY2007-FY2011.
Expanded limitation on administrative spending. The costs of the PSSF
program are shared by the federal government (75%) and the states (at least 25%).
Under current law, a state may not spend more than 10% of the federal PSSF funds
it receives for administrative purposes, but there is no limit on use of the state PSSF
funds (often described as “matching” funds) that may be spent for administrative
purposes. Beginning with FY2008, S. 3525 would extend the 10% limit on spending
for administrative purposes to include all funds spent under the program, both federal
and non-federal.
Reporting on use of funds. Current law and policy emphasize planning the
use of PSSF funds, along with the Child Welfare Services and other child welfare or
related programs, to ensure that a comprehensive range of child and family services
is developed in each state. (See “Planning and Reporting,” below.) In keeping with
this emphasis, states are now required to annually send information to HHS on their
planned use of funds under the PSSF, Child Welfare Services, and other child
welfare and related programs. S. 3525 would requires states, beginning on June 30,
2007, to annually submit actual (in addition to planned) expenditure data on their use
of funds under the PSSF and Child Welfare Services programs. (States, at their own
option, may also provide data on actual use of funds in other programs, as well.)
Data on the use of funds are to be submitted on standard forms (currently used to
report planned expenditures only) and include, for each program, spending by
service, activity, or assistance provided, and the number of people served, the
populations targeted for services, and the geographic areas served. The bill would
further require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to compile
the forms showing this planned and actual use of funds and to submit them to the
Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees by September 30 of each
year.

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Targeting the Use of New Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Program Funds
The FY2006 mandatory funding authorization for the PSSF was raised from
$305 million to $345 million by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171),
but this additional $40 million has not yet been appropriated. S. 3525 appropriates
the FY2006 funds and extends this $40 million annual increase in the mandatory
funding authorization level through FY2011. Further, as shown in Table 1, the bill
targets the use of the new funding to support monthly caseworker visits of children
in foster care and to provide grants to increase the well-being of children affected by
a parent or caretaker’s abuse of methamphetamine (or other substances).
Table 1. Distribution of Targeted PSSF Funds
$ in millions
Fiscal Year
2006a
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Total
Purpose
Support for monthly caseworker
$40
$0
$5
$10
$20
$20
$95
visits of children in foster care
Support for grants to improve
$0
$40
$35
$30
$20
$20
$145
outcomes of children affected by a
parent or caretaker’s abuse of meth-
amphetamine or another substance
Source: Table prepared by the Congressional Research Service, based on Section 4 of S. 3525, as
passed by the Senate on September 20.
a. These funds are to remain available for states and territories to spend through FY2009. Under the
bill passed on September 20, 2006, none of the $40 million in increased FY2006 funds for the PSSF
program would be made available to tribes.
Support for monthly caseworker visits. Between FY2006 and FY2011,
S. 3525 would provide a total of $95 million in funds for support of monthly
caseworker visits of children in foster care “with a primary emphasis on activities
designed to improve caseworker retention, recruitment, training and ability to access
the benefits of technology.” This includes all of the $40 million in FY2006 PSSF
funds (which would be appropriated by the act and would remain available for states
to spend through FY2009), as well as $5 million in FY2008; $10 million in FY2009;
and $20 million in each of FY2010 and FY2011.
States would receive these funds on essentially the same formula basis as is the
case for the current PSSF program (distribution is based on a state’s relative share of
children receiving food stamps in the nation). However, S. 3525 would not permit
the funds appropriated solely for support of monthly caseworker visits to be used to
supplant other federal foster care funds available under Title IV-E of the Social
Security Act for the same purposes. Also, for FY2008-FY2011, a state’s access to
the full allotment of funds reserved for support of monthly caseworker visits would
be contingent upon its spending no less than $1 on support of caseworker visits for
every $3 in federal funds it received for that purpose. (For separate provisions in S.

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3525 that are related to caseworker visits of children in foster care, see the discussion
under Monthly Caseworker Visit Standards, below.)
Grants to Increase the Well-Being of and Improve the Permanency
for Children Affected by Methamphetamine or Other Substance Abuse.
Between FY2007 and FY2011, S. 3525 would reserve $145 million in mandatory
PSSF funds ($40 million for FY2007, $35 million for FY2008, $30 million for
FY2009 and $20 million in each of FY2010 and FY2011) to support competitive
grants to regional partnerships for services and activities designed to improve the
safety, permanency, and well-being of children who are in an out-of-home placement
or are at-risk of such placement because of a parent or caretaker’s abuse of
methamphetamine or another substance.
The services and activities that could be funded under such a grant include
family-based comprehensive long-term substance abuse treatment and replication of
successful models for such treatment; early intervention and preventative services;
counseling for children and families; mental health services; and parenting skills
training. S. 3525 would require that regional partnerships be established by a
collaborative agreement between two or more entities (for example, providers of
child welfare services, including the state child welfare agency; the state agency
administering federal substance abuse prevention and treatment funding; local law
enforcement agencies; juvenile justice officials, judges and school or court personnel;
providers of community health and mental health services and tribes, including tribal
child welfare agencies). The state child welfare agency would not need to be the lead
agency in the partnership applying for these funds, but (except in cases where a
tribe/tribal child welfare agency is a member of the partnership) must be a member
of each partnership.
HHS would be required to award grants to successful regional partnerships
giving consideration to the level of need demonstrated in the application, and, once
that initial consideration is given, with added weight given to those applications from
regional partnerships showing the effect of methamphetamine abuse and addiction
on the child welfare system in the partnership region. S. 3525 would permit each of
these grants to be made for no less than two years and for no more than five years
with annual funding of at least $500,000 but not more than $1 million. Finally,
grantees would be required to submit annual reports on their activities and to
incorporate information related to their performance on certain indicators (to be
developed by HHS in consultation with representatives of states and tribes receiving
funds). Further, HHS must annually send information regarding the use of this grant
funding to the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees.
Evaluation of targeted spending. Under current law, HHS must each year
reserve $6 million in mandatory PSSF funds to support research, technical assistance,
and training related to the program and for evaluation of the program (or other
programs designed to achieve the same purposes). S. 3525 would stipulate that HHS
must annually spend no less than $1 million of those reserved funds for research,
evaluation and technical assistance related to supporting monthly caseworker visits
of children in foster care and no less than $1 million annually for research,
evaluation, and technical assistance related to the competitive grants to increase the

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well-being and improve the permanency of children affected by methamphetamine
or other substance abuse.
Tribal Promoting Safe and Stable Families
Program Funding and Access
The statute currently provides that tribal PSSF programs are to be funded with
a 1% set-aside of the program’s mandatory funding, plus a 2% set-aside of any
discretionary funds provided for the program (see Table 3 below). Under the
FY2006 funding authorization levels, the maximum funding that may be provided
for these tribal programs is $7.45 million. However, because Congress has never
appropriated the full amount of discretionary funding authorized for this program, in
recent years tribes have typically received about $5 million in PSSF funding.
Beginning with FY2007, S. 3525 would raise the tribal set-aside to 3% of the
mandatory funding plus 3% of any discretionary funding provided for PSSF.
However, it would apply the 3% set-aside of mandatory funds only after the $40
million in targeted funds are reserved for the purposes described below. Thus, the
maximum funding authorized to be made available to tribes out of the PSSF would
be $15.15 million and the minimum funding would be $9.15 million.
Also under current law, for a tribe to receive approval for direct federal PSSF
funds, it must be eligible for an allotment of at least $10,000. Tribal allotments are
based on a tribe’s relative share of individuals under the age of 21 (among all eligible
tribes). For FY2006, about 90 tribal programs received funds. S. 3525 would
permit a group of tribes to form a consortium and to have their allotment share
determined based on their combined share of children under the age of 21. The effect
of this provision should be to expand access to PSSF funds by permitting tribes with
smaller populations to band together (or to band with a larger tribe) to ensure their
allotment amount is equal to or greater then $10,000.
Finally, S. 3525 would limit the current authority of HHS to exempt tribes from
any PSSF state plan requirement that the Department determines would be
inappropriate for that tribe based on the tribe’s size and resources. The bill would
provide that HHS may continue to exempt tribes from program requirements that no
more than 10% of federal program funds be spent on administrative purposes and
that “significant portions” of those federal funds must be spent on each of the four
service categories: community-based family support, family preservation, time-
limited reunification, and adoption promotion and support. Tribes would be required
to comply with all other plan requirements (which are primarily related to planning
and reporting).
Amendments to the Child Welfare Services Program
The Child Welfare Services program (Title IV-B of the Social Security Act) is
currently authorized to receive funding of $325 million annually on an indefinite
basis. S. 3525 continues this same funding authorization level for the program but
limits the authorization to five years (FY2007-FY2011)—thus placing this program
on the same reauthorization calender as the Promoting Safe and Stable Families
program.

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Purposes. The bill rewrites the purposes of the program, which currently
permits support for a wide range of child and family services, shortening them while
largely incorporating the intent of current law. However, both the assertion that the
program is intended to promote “state flexibility in the development and expansion
of a coordinated child and family services program” and an explicit program purpose
related to providing training development and support to ensure a well-qualified child
welfare workforce are new.
Limitation on Administrative Spending. The total cost of the Child
Welfare Services program is shared by the federal government (75%) and the state
(at least 25%). There is currently no limit on the amount of program funds states may
spend for administrative purposes. Beginning with FY2008, S. 3525 would provide
a 10% limit on the use of program funds—both federal and non-federal (often called
“matching” funds)—for administrative purposes. The bill would define
administrative costs to include CWS-related procurement, payroll management,
personnel functions (except supervision of caseworker services), management,
maintenance and operation of space and property, data processing and computer
services, accounting, budgeting, auditing, and certain travel expenses. (Under this
definition, spending on caseworker services would not be considered administrative.)
Revised Limitation on Use of Federal Funds. Under current law, states
may not spend more of their federal Child Welfare Services funds for foster care
maintenance payments, adoption assistance payments or child day care necessary
solely for the employment or employment related training of a parent/relative of a
child than the amount the state received under this program in FY1979. (In FY1979,
funding for the program was $56.5 million or roughly 20% of the FY2006 funding
level.) S. 3525 would revise this limit. The bill provides that, beginning with
FY2008, no state may spend federal CWS funds for foster care maintenance
payments, adoption assistance payments, or child day care unless it can demonstrate
to HHS that it used federal CWS funds for at least one of these purposes in FY2005.
If a state can show this, then its new annual limit on spending of federal CWS funds
for these three purposes, combined, is the amount of the federal CWS funds it spent
on them in FY2005.
Limit on use of non-federal (matching) funds. For purposes of
providing their required 25% of the Child Welfare Services program cost (i.e. their
matching dollars), states may now count their own spending for foster care
maintenance payments without any limits. Beginning with FY2008, S. 3525 would
prohibit states from using any foster care maintenance payment expenditures for the
purpose of providing their non-federal matching dollars under the CWS program
unless the state can show that it used foster care maintenance payment spending to
meet the matching requirement for CWS funds in FY2005. If a state can show this,
then the amount of the foster care maintenance payment spending that it counted
under the program for matching purposes in FY2005 is the maximum amount of
foster care maintenance payment spending it may count in the program in FY2008
and every following year.
State Plan Requirements. Under the Child Welfare Services program,
states are required to develop a plan that assures the state will meet federal
requirements. S. 3525 would add several new requirements. The bill would require

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states to describe how they consult with and involve physicians or other appropriate
medical professionals in assessing the health and well-being of children in foster care
and in determining appropriate medical treatment for them. No later than one year
after the enactment of S. 3525, the bill further requires states to have child welfare
disaster-response procedures in place, which would be intended to ensure continued
availability of child and family services in the wake of a disaster. In addition, S. 3525
would require states to describe, as of the first day of FY2008, their standards for the
content and frequency of caseworker visits to children in foster care At a minimum,
these standards would need to include a monthly visit by the caseworker that is “well-
planned and focused on issues pertinent to case planning and service delivery to
ensure the safety, permanency and well-being of the children.” (Related requirements
are described below, under Monthly Caseworker Visit Standards.)
S. 3525 would include a separate requirement to clarify that for children in
foster care who have a permanency goal of “another planned permanent living
arrangement” such an arrangement may include placement in a residential education
program. S. 3525 would also eliminate certain current law requirements that have
little or no meaning today. These are the provisions requiring a state to assure that—
the child care standards used in the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) apply to any
child day care services funded under CWS; it will train and use paraprofessional staff
and volunteers to help with the program; and it has (as of June 1980) conducted an
inventory of children in foster care. Finally, the bill would re-organize much of the
CWS program language and makes numerous, related conforming amendments and
some technical amendments.
Monthly Caseworker Visit Standards
Beyond requiring specific caseworker visitation standards in state Child Welfare
Services plans (described above), S. 3525 would require each state—before it can
receive any FY2008 CWS funding—to provide data to HHS that show (for FY2007)
the percentage of children in its foster care caseload who were visited on a monthly
basis (by their caseworkers) and the percentage of those visits that occurred in the
place where the child lived. Based on these data, HHS, in consultation with the state,
would be required to outline (as of June 30, 2008) state-specific steps (including
target percentages to be reached) to ensure that no later than October 1, 2011 (first
day of FY2012), at least 90% of the children in foster care receive a monthly visit
(and that most of these visits occur where the child lives).
Further, the bill would provide that beginning with FY2009, if HHS determines
that a state has not made the requisite progress toward meeting the monthly
caseworker visitation standard, then the state must spend more of its own funds under
the program in order to receive its full federal allotment. The minimum penalty
would be 1 percentage point (meaning the state would need to provide 26% of
program funding to receive its full federal allotment) and the maximum penalty
would be 5 percentage points (meaning a state would need to provide 30% of the
program funding to receive its full federal allotment). The amount of penalty for a
state would be determined by its degree of noncompliance with its state-specific
monthly caseworker visits targets. S. 3525 would also require HHS to prepare a
progress report, including recommendations, on state caseworker visitation standards
and submit this report to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees

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CRS-8
no later than March 31, 2010.
Publication of state visitation rate. Finally, S. 3525 would require that
beginning with the report for FY2007, the annual Child Welfare Outcomes report,
which HHS is required to prepare (under Section 479A of the Social Security Act),
must include state-by-state data on the percentage of children in foster care who
received monthly caseworker visits and the percentage of the visits that occurred
where the child lives.
Mentoring Children of Prisoners Reauthorization
The Mentoring Children of Prisoners program (Section 439 of the Social
Security Act) currently provides grants to local public or private entities to establish,
expand, or operate programs that provide mentoring services to children of
prisoners.1 The program has a funding authorization level of “such sums as may be
necessary.”
S. 3525 would extend program authority for the Mentoring Children of
Prisoners program for FY2007-FY2011 and provide that funds may be appropriated
for the program in each of those years at “such sums as may be necessary.” In
addition, S. 3525 would expand the purpose of the program to require HHS to enter
into a cooperative agreement with a qualified entity to demonstrate the effectiveness
of using vouchers to deliver mentoring services to children of prisoners nationwide.
The entity selected on a competitive basis to conduct the voucher demonstration
must identify children in need of mentoring services (with priority given to Indian
children, and children in areas that are rural, are not now served by this program, or
that have substantial numbers of children of prisoners); provide families of these
identified children with vouchers (as well as a list of qualified mentoring programs
in their area); develop (with HHS) quality program standards for mentoring services,
including criminal background checks of prospective mentors; and monitor and
oversee the delivery of the vouchers. Contingent on sufficient appropriated funding,
the entity must agree to provide 3,000 vouchers in the first year of the cooperative
agreement, 8,000 in the second year and 13,000 in the third year. The vouchers are
to be valued at one-year of services and a qualified provider may receive periodic
payments for a voucher by providing mentoring services to the child for whom it was
issued and by demonstrating that it will be able to continue these services (with non-
federal resources) after the 12-month value of the voucher is exhausted.
S. 3525 would increase to 4% (from 2.5%) the amount of funds that must be
reserved by HHS out of the total appropriation for the Mentoring Children of
Prisoners program for evaluation, research, and technical assistance related to both
the site-based and voucher-based delivery of mentoring services. In addition to
completing an evaluation of the total program, S. 3525 would require HHS to fund
an independent evaluation of the demonstration project, and to provide a report of
1 For more information on the Mentoring Children of Prisoners program, see CRS Report
RL32633, Mentoring Programs Funded by the Federal Government Dedicated to
Disadvantaged Youth: Issues and Activities, by Edith Fairman Cooper.

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CRS-9
this evaluation to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees no
later than 90 days after the end of the second year of the demonstration. S. 3525
would further provide that the cooperative agreement may be extended two years
beyond the initial three-year demonstration phase, if the entity administering the
project performs satisfactorily and if an independent evaluation shows that vouchers
are an effective way to deliver these services.
Finally, S. 3525 would provide that if at least $25 million in program
appropriations are made available for site-based grants (i.e. the current program),
HHS must reserve not more than $5 million for the entity selected to demonstrate
voucher service delivery in the first year of the cooperative agreement, $10 million
for the second year of the agreement, and $15 million for the third year.
Extension of the Court Improvement Program
S. 3525 would extend through FY2011, the entitlement of eligible state highest
courts to funds reserved from the PSSF program, which are to improve court
handling of child welfare proceedings. It also extends through FY2011 the
requirement that a highest state court receiving these funds must provide no less than
25% of the funding for the activities supported by the Court Improvement Program
(Section 438 of the Social Security Act). For more information about this program,
including changes made to it by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171),
see CRS Report RL33350, Child Welfare: The Court Improvement Program, by
Emilie Stoltzfus.
Court Consultation with Child/Youth
in Permanency Review Proceedings
S. 3525 would amend the definition of the case review system provided in Title
IV-E foster care to assert that as part of the required annual permanency review for
each child in foster care, the court or administrative body conducting the review must
consult (in an age-appropriate manner) with the child whose permanency plan is the
subject of the review. This would include permanency hearings that review a foster
youth’s transition to independent living.
Funding for the Safe and Stable Families Program
As noted above, S. 3525 would appropriate $40 million in additional FY2006
funding for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families. These mandatory funds were
authorized in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171), which was enacted
after the FY2006 appropriations cycle had been completed. (The cost of that
appropriation was “scored” or “paid for” in the Deficit Reduction Act.) If enacted,
S. 3525 would provide total FY2006 Safe and Stable Families funding of $434
million (the full $345 million in authorized mandatory funds plus $89 million in
discretionary funds).
Total FY2007 funding. The final Promoting Safe and Stable Families
program funding level for FY2007 has not yet been determined. On July 20, 2006,

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CRS-10
the Senate Appropriations Committee reported legislation (S. 3709, S.Rept. 109-287)
that would provide a total of $420 million for the program ($345 million in
mandatory funding plus $75 million in discretionary). On June 20, 2006, the House
Appropriations Committee reported legislation (H.R. 5647, H.Rept. 109-515) that
would provide $434 million in FY2007 funding for the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families program ($345 million in mandatory funds plus $89 million in discretionary
appropriation).
Level of Discretionary Funding. Since FY2002, there has been an annual
discretionary funding authorization for the Safe and Stable Families program of $200
million. However, Congress has never appropriated more than $99 million out of the
full $200 million discretionary funding authorization for PSSF. For FY2002-
FY2005, the Administration consistently requested the full $200 million in
discretionary funding. However, for FY2006 it requested $105 million in
discretionary funds for the program, and its FY2007 request of $89 million matches
the reduced discretionary funding appropriated by the Congress for FY2006. As
noted above the House Appropriations Committee proposes to match the
Administration’s requested discretionary funding level while the Senate would
reduce the program’s discretionary funding to $75 million.2
Table 2 shows mandatory and discretionary funding authorized and
appropriated by Congress for FY2002-FY2006. (See Table 4 in this report for a
breaksdown of these funds by purpose.)
Table 2. Total Funding Authorization and Appropriations for the
Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program, FY1994-FY2006
(in millions of dollars)
Fiscal
Mandatory funding
Discretionary funding
Total funding
year
Authorized
Appropriated
Authorized
Appropriated
Authorized
Appropriated
1994
60
60
60
60
1995
150
150
150
150
1996
225
225
No discretionary funds
225
225
were authorized, nor were
1997
240
240
240
240
any appropriated in the
1998
255a
255a
first eight years of the
255a
255
1999
275
275
program.
275
275
2000
295
295
295
295
2001
305
305
305
305
2002
305
305
200
70
505
375
2003
305
305
200
99
505
404
2004
305
305
200
99
505
404
2005
305
305
200
99
505
404
2006
345
305
200
89
545
394b
2 See CRS Report RS22178 Child Welfare: Funding in the 109th Congress, by Emilie
Stoltzfus for a table showing recent and FY2007 funding levels for child welfare programs
generally.

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CRS-11
Source: Table prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
a. More specifically, the authorization level for this year was the greater of $255 million or the
FY1997 authorization level ($240 million) increased by a specified inflation factor.
b. The statutory increase in the mandatory funding authorization level for FY2006 occurred after the
regular appropriations cycle for that fiscal year had been completed. S. 3525 would appropriate
$40 million in FY2006 PSSF funding (to provide the full mandatory funding level authorized),
and that would bring total FY2006 program funding to $434 million. In addition, Congress has
already appropriated (as part of P.L. 109-171) an additional $20 million in FY2006 for new
Court Improvement Grants. This money has been provided separately from the Promoting Safe
and Stable Families authorization, and is not included in this table.
Reauthorization Activity in the 109th Congress
President’s Budget Request. The Administration’s Congressional Budget
Justifications for FY2007 assume reauthorization of the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families program but do not provide any specific legislative proposals. The
Administration requested $434 million for PSSF appropriations in FY2007. This
assumed mandatory funding of $345 million and discretionary funding of $89
million. The Administration also assumed reauthorization of the Mentoring Children
of Prisoners program and requested a legislative change in program authority (to
permit use of the funds for vouchers to receive mentoring services). It also sought
$40 million in FY2007 funding for the mentoring program, which is less then the $49
million appropriated for the program in FY2006. Funding authorization for the Child
Welfare Services program is currently authorized on an indefinite basis and the
Administration requested $287 million for the program in FY2007, which is the
amount of funding it received in FY2006.3
Congressional Action. By unanimous consent on September 20, 2006 the
Senate amended (S. Amdt 5024 and S. Amdt 5025) and passed the Child and Family
Services Improvement Act of 2006 (S. 3525). The bill has been sent to the House for
further action. As passed by the Senate, the legislation incorporates provisions that
were included in two earlier versions of S. 3525 that separately passed the House and
the Senate in July.
House. On July 25, 2006 the House, under suspension of the rules passed the
Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006. That bill largely followed
language included in H.R. 5640, as reported by the House Ways and Means
Committee (H.Rept. 109-555) on July 12. H.R. 5640 was introduced on June 20 by
Representatives Wally Herger and Jim McDermott and, the House Ways and Means
3 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and
Families (ACF), Justifications of Estimates for Appropriations Committees, FY2007, Feb.
2006. The Administration’s FY2007 budget documents also assume continuation of the
Court Improvement Program funds, which are set-aside from the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families program and assumes availability of the additional $20 million in pre-appropriated
funding for the related Court Improvement Program. The pre-appropriated funds are
provided independent of the PSSF program and are not discussed in detail in this report. For
more information on that program see CRS Report RL33350 Child Welfare: The Court
Improvement Program, by Emilie Stoltzfus.

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CRS-12
Committee, after amending it, gave the bill unanimous approval on June 29.
On May 23, 2006, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee held a hearing to
review proposals to improve child protective services. The subcommittee heard from
representatives of the court, social workers, state child welfare agencies, and the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) and many advocates—representing a
range of viewpoints—who spoke on behalf of children served in the child welfare
system.
Senate. On July 13, 2006, the Senate passed the Improving Outcomes for
Children Affected by Meth Act of 2006 (S. 3525) by unanimous consent and then
sent the bill to the House for further action. On June 8, the bill was ordered favorably
reported by a unanimous Senate Finance Committee and the original measure was
introduced by Senator Grassley on June 15 with a written report from the Senate
Finance Committee submitted on June 23 (S.Rept. 109-269).
Before approving this legislation, the Senate Finance Committee held two
related hearings. On April 25, 2006, witnesses, including child welfare program
administrators, advocates, and researchers, as well as individuals in recovery from
methamphetamine, testified at a hearing titled “The Social and Economic Effects of
the Methamphetamine Epidemic on America’s Child Welfare System.” A number
of witnesses emphasized that treatment for methamphetamine abuse, especially
family-based, longer-term and comprehensive residential treatment, can be effective,
and that increasing access to these services could improve the lives of children and
their families affected by methamphetamine abuse. On May 10, 2006, in a hearing
titled “Fostering Permanence: Progress Achieved and Challenges Ahead for
America’s Child Welfare Systems,” the Senate Finance Committee heard testimony
from child welfare advocates and policy experts, federal and tribal program
administrators, and a former foster care youth. These witnesses stressed the need for
continued federal support of child welfare programs; the tribal administrator
emphasized the limited funds available to her tribe and the many challenges it faced,
including methamphetamine abuse.4
Legislative History of the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Program
At least since the 1980 creation of the current federal child welfare program
structure (P.L. 96-272), Congress has remained consistently concerned about the
number of children in foster care and the lack of stability and permanence in their
lives. During the 1990s, Congress created a new program, now called the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Program, which responded to some of those concerns.
Although the child welfare policies enacted have at various times placed greater or
lesser emphasis on keeping biological families together or creating new adoptive
families—the overriding concerns have remained relatively constant, and are
4 Both hearings can be viewed on the Senate Finance Committee website at
[http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/hearings.htm].

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CRS-13
consistent with the current primary policy goals of ensuring children’s safety and
permanence.
By the end of the 1980s, there were widespread concerns about a rapidly
growing national foster care caseload (believed to be spurred by the spread of crack
cocaine use) and a belief that too few preventive services were resulting in too many
children being unnecessarily placed in foster care. At the same time, a number of
states, often with the support of foundations, had begun to offer a model of family
preservation services that provided families with short-term, intensive services; early
research suggested these services would significantly reduce the number of children
unnecessarily placed in foster care.
In this climate, Congress began discussions about increasing federal support for
preventive services, including intensive family preservation. Several years of
legislative efforts lead initially to a 1992 agreement between the House and Senate
on new capped entitlement funding for 1) “innovative services” to children and
families (e.g., family preservation services); 2) substance abuse prevention and
treatment; and 3) respite care. The agreement would have entitled states to their
share of $165 million for these purposes in FY1993 rising to $575 million in
FY1998, and for every succeeding year, the FY1998 amount adjusted by an inflation
factor. The legislation provided specific allotment of the total funds for each purpose
—with the largest share reserved for innovative services (conference agreement to
accompany H.R. 11, 102nd Cong., H.Rept. 102-1034). Although this legislation was
approved by both the Senate and the House, as part of an omnibus package, the
Revenue Act of 1992, it was vetoed by President George H. W. Bush (for reasons
unrelated to the child welfare provisions) and so did not become law.
Original Enactment. One year later, however, child welfare advocates
succeeded in including new entitlement funding for family preservation and support
services in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (P.L. 103-66) through
a newly created Subpart 2 of Title IV-B of the Social Security Act. Proposed by the
Clinton Administration, the 1993 legislation drew much of its inspiration from the
earlier legislative work but made several notable changes. Among those, it included
less entitlement funding and deleted specific allotment of funds for substance abuse
prevention and treatment and respite care (both of which could nonetheless be funded
out of the program that was approved).
As enacted, the Family Preservation and Support Services provisions of P.L.
103-66 entitled states to receive a certain portion of federal funds (rising from $60
million in FY1994 to no less than $255 million by FY1998) to enable states and
territories “to develop and establish, or expand, and to operate a program of family
preservation services and community-based family support services.” One percent
of the funds was to be reserved for support of tribal child and family services, and
each state was to be allotted these new funds based on its relative share of children
who receive food stamps.5 To receive their full formula allocation states were
5 Territories receive funds based on a minimum allotment of $70,000 and a formula that
assumes low per capita income in each territory and takes into account their relative share
(continued...)

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CRS-14
required to maintain at least their FY1992 level of funding for these services and to
support no less than 25% of the state’s total family preservation and family support
services program with non-federal funding. Finally, the new law also provided that
funds were to be set aside annually to allow state highest courts to assess their need
for improvements to their handling of child welfare cases ($5 million for such grants
in FY1995 and $10 million for each of FY1996-FY1998) and, separately, to allow
HHS to evaluate programs carried out under the new subpart or others designed to
achieve the same purposes and to support research, training and technical assistance
related to the program ($2 million in FY1994 and $6 million in each of FY1995-
FY1998).
ASFA Amendments. Congress returned to child welfare issues when it
passed the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, P.L. 105-89). That
legislation sought to make a child’s safety the primary concern in all child welfare
decisions and also to move foster children to a permanent family more quickly. With
an eye toward children’s development and their concept of time, Members of
Congress were concerned that states maintained a goal of family reunification long
after it was apparent that such a goal was inappropriate (or in cases where
reunification might in fact jeopardize the child’s safety). They were also troubled by
reports that the number of adoptions out of foster care had remained virtually
unchanged for years while the number of children in care had risen dramatically.6
ASFA renamed Title IV-B, Subpart 2 of the Social Security Act, the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families program. In addition, as one part of ASFA’s multiple
amendments related to safety of children, Congress added a requirement that the
safety of children be the “paramount concern” in administering and conducting
service programs under Title IV-B, Subpart 2 of the Social Security Act. Further, as
part of its focus on expediting decisions around finding a permanent home for
children in foster care (and encouraging adoption as one method of doing this),
Congress defined two additional service categories for which states were required to
use “significant portions” of their Title IV-B, Subpart 2 funding—time-limited family
reunification services and adoption promotion and support. Finally, Congress set
annual increases in the mandatory funding authorized for the program, raising it from
$275 million in FY1999 to $305 million in FY2001. (Congress also continued the
annual set-asides from these funds for tribal child and family services, court
improvements, and program evaluation, research, training, and technical assistance.)
The time limit for the new category of reunification services was set at within
15 months of a child’s removal from his/her home. This is consistent with a separate
ASFA-added requirement, which provides that states must initiate termination of
parental rights (TPR) proceedings for any child who has been in foster care for 15 of
5 (...continued)
of the population under age 21. This is the same formula used to distribute funds to the
territories under Title IV-B, Subpart 1 of the Social Security Act, the Child Welfare Services
program.
6 For a discussion of the full range of significant child welfare policy changes made by this
legislation see CRS Report RL30759, Child Welfare: Implementation of the Adoption and
Safe Families Act, by Karen Spar and Matthew Shuman.

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CRS-15
the past 22 months (unless the state can show good cause why it should not do this).
A child’s adoption cannot be completed without termination of parental rights and
courts are generally reluctant to grant TPR in cases where the family has not first
been offered needed reunification services. Thus the new “time-limited
reunification” funding category sought to ensure that ASFA’s efforts to expedite
permanency were not defeated by a lack of available or provided services. Likewise,
the addition of the adoption promotion and support services category was consistent
with other ASFA amendments that encouraged adoption as a way of attaining
permanency for children.
2001 Amendments. Program reauthorization language introduced in 2001
largely mirrored language suggested by the Bush Administration and initially sought
to raise the annual mandatory funding level of the program to $505 million.
However, Congress subsequently changed this provision (and the Administration also
changed its budget request) to instead authorize discretionary funds above the prior
mandatory funding level.7 As enacted, the Promoting Safe and Stable Families
Amendments of 2001 (P.L. 107-133) authorized $200 million in discretionary
funding for the program in each of FY2002-FY2006 and maintained the prior
authorized mandatory funding level ($305 million) through FY2006. P.L. 107-133
further provided that a state was entitled to its share of any discretionary funds
appropriated in the same manner (i.e., based on its relative share of children receiving
food stamps) as was the case with mandatory funding. Additionally, it provided that,
out of any discretionary funds appropriated (and in addition to the pre-existing set-
asides of mandatory funds for these same purposes), 2% must be set aside for tribal
child and family services, 3.3% for Court Improvement and 3.3% for research,
evaluation, training and technical assistance.
P.L. 107-133 added four findings to the statute and provided four program
objectives (each linked to one of the four service categories funded by the program).
It amended the definition of family preservation services (to include funding of infant
“safe haven” programs) and the definition of family support services (to explicitly
include funding of services that “strengthen parental relationships and promote
healthy marriages”); provided for re-allotment of any unused program funds; moved
the statutory authorization language for the Court Improvement Program (previously
freestanding) into the Social Security Act; and provided that in implementing
changes identified by an assessment, courts could use CIP funds to ensure children’s
safety, well-being and permanence (in accordance with standards established in
ASFA) and to implement a corrective action plan identified as needed via a federal
conformity review of the child welfare agency. Finally, it established research
priorities and specified the kinds of technical assistance HHS may offer to tribes,
territories and states regarding implementing the Promoting Safe and Stable Families
program and required the Department to report to Congress biennially (beginning not
later than April 2003) on the evaluations, research and technical assistance funded
7 For more about the funding proposals made in this reauthorization, see CRS Report
RL30894, Child Welfare: Reauthorization of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families
Program in the 107th Congress, by Emilie Stoltzfus and Karen Spar.

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CRS-16
with money set-aside for this purpose from the PSSF.8
Changes Made by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. As enacted in
February 2006, the Deficit Reduction Act (P.L. 109-171) increased the FY2006
mandatory funding authorization for the PSSF program, for FY2006 only, to $345
million. Although states are, by statute, entitled to their full allotment of these
mandatory funds, Congress must still appropriate the additional $40 million to enable
states to receive the additional FY2006 funds. Separately P.L. 109-171 also amended
the Court Improvement Program, which had been entirely funded as a set-aside from
the PSSF funding. These amendments provide for two new kinds of Court
Improvement Program grants, which are related to improved training and, separately,
timely achievement of safety, permanence and well-being for children; the law
appropriates $20 million for each of FY2006-FY2010 (total of $100 million) to make
these grants. These funds are independent of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families
funding, and for FY2006, are in addition to the funds already set-aside from the PSSF
for assessing and improving court performance in child welfare proceedings.9
The Promoting Safe and Stable Families and Court Improvement provisions of
the Deficit Reduction Act were incorporated into the legislation during the
conference negotiations and had not been previously acted on by the Senate or the
House. However, changes to the Court Improvement Program are consistent with
recommendations made in a May 2004 report by the Pew Commission on Children
in Foster Care and legislation introduced in the Senate (S. 1679) and House (H.R.
3758) sought to make similar or related court improvement changes.
Current PSSF Law and Issues
The basic purpose of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program is to
“enable States to develop and establish, or expand, and to operate coordinated
programs of community-based family support services, family preservation services,
time-limited family reunification services, and adoption promotion and support
services.”
8 P.L. 107-133 also added a new section to Title IV-B, Subpart 2, which authorizes
discretionary funds for competitive grants to eligible entities that support mentoring for
children of prisoners. The authority of HHS to make grants under this program (funded at
$49 million in FY2006) will expire at the end of this fiscal year. The program’s provisions
are briefly described in CRS Report RL30894, Child Welfare: Reauthorization of the
Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program in the 107th Congress, by Emilie Stoltzfus and
Karen Spar, pp. 15-16 and Table 1. For more information about federal support of
mentoring see CRS Report RL32633, Mentoring Programs Funded by the Federal
Government Dedicated to Disadvantaged Youth: Issues and Activities, by Edith Fairman
Cooper.
9 For more information see CRS Report RL33350, Child Welfare: The Court Improvement
Program, by Emilie Stoltzfus.

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CRS-17
Service Categories Defined
States are required to spend significant portions of their PSSF funding on each
of four service categories: family support, family preservation, time-limited family
reunification, and adoption promotion and support services. The statute (Section 431
of the Social Security Act) defines these service categories at some length.
Family support—community-based services to promote the safety and
well-being of children and families designed to increase the strength and
stability of families (including adoptive, foster, and extended families), to
increase parents’ confidence and competence in their parenting abilities,
to afford children a safe, stable and supportive family environment, to
strengthen parental relationships and promote healthy marriages, and
otherwise to enhance child development.
Family preservation—services for children and families designed to help
families (including adoptive and extended families) at risk or in crisis,
including

! service programs designed to help children safely return to families
from which they have been removed; or be placed for adoption or
with a legal guardian (or, if adoption or legal guardianship is
determined not to be safe and appropriate for the child, in some
other planned, permanent living arrangement);
! preplacement preventive services programs, such as intensive family
preservation programs, designed to help children at risk of foster
care placement remain safely with their families;
! service programs designed to provide follow-up care for families to
whom a child has been returned after a foster care placement;
! respite care of children to provide temporary relief of parents and
other caregivers (including foster parents);
! services designed to improve parenting skills (by reinforcing
parents’ confidence in their strengths, and helping them to identify
where improvement is needed and to obtain assistance in improving
those skills) with respect to matters such as child development,
family budgeting coping with stress, health, and nutrition; and
! infant safe haven programs to provide a way for a parent to safely
relinquish a newborn infant at a safe haven designated pursuant to
a state law.
Time-limited family reunification—services and activities provided to a
child that is removed from his/her home and placed in foster care, and to
the parents or primary caregiver of such a child, in order to facilitate the
reunification of the child safely, appropriately and within a timely fashion,
but only during the 15-month period that begins on the date that the child
is considered to have entered foster care:

! individual, group, and family counseling;
! inpatient, residential, or outpatient substance abuse services;
! mental health services;

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CRS-18
! assistance to address domestic violence;
! services designed to provide temporary child care and therapeutic
services for families, including crisis nurseries;
! transportation to or from any of the services and activities described.
Adoption promotion and support—services and activities designed to
encourage more adoptions out of the foster care system, when adoptions
promote the best interests of children, including such activities as pre- and
post-adoptive services and activities designed to expedite the adoption
process and support adoptive families.
Service Category Overlap
Even a relatively quick reading of these definitions reveals that in many cases
they define a mission rather than provide a list of specific activities that are expected
to achieve this mission. Further, the PSSF service categories have similar and, in
some cases, even identical missions. At the same time, while the service categories
can be understood as having overlapping missions or even, in certain cases as subsets
of each other, each of the PSSF services categories have different target populations
and, as the legislative history shows, they were created by Congress to meet separate
if related goals.
Family support services have the broadest target population and, in philosophy,
aim to bolster the functioning of any family in a given community. Family
preservation services are generally understood to serve a far narrower group of
families—those where children are at imminent risk of removal to foster care,
meaning in most cases that a child has already experienced abuse or neglect (and
including some families where a child has been removed to foster care and
reunification efforts are underway). Federal child welfare funding for family support
and family preservation services was instituted at a time when Congress was
particularly concerned about the burgeoning foster care caseload. The services were
intended to prevent the need for foster care placement, whenever possible and the
new funding for these services was the centerpiece of the child welfare legislation in
which they were enacted (P.L. 103-66).
Time-limited reunification services may be understood as a subset of family
preservation services and are explicitly meant to serve the needs of children and
families who have been separated for 15 months or less (because the child is placed
in foster care). Adoption promotion and support services aim to encourage families
seeking to adopt from foster care and to support those who have done so. Such
services might also be understand as a subset of family support services, or in the
case of adoptive families in crisis, as a family preservation service. Federal funding
for these services was not the central creation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act
(ASFA, P.L. 105-89). Rather, Congress increased PSSF funding to some extent and
required states to spend money on time-limited reunification and adoption promotion
and support to augment ASFA’s central goals of promoting safety and permanency
for children. At the time, Congress remained deeply concerned about the size of the
foster care caseload, but ASFA helped shift the focus of this concern from policies
primarily intended to prevent entries into foster care to policies that sought to safely
expedite exits from care.

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CRS-19
State Planned Spending by Category. Federal statute, as interpreted in
HHS policy, requires states to spend at least 20% of their PSSF funds on each of the
four service categories.10 Collectively states reported that they intended to spend
their FY2002 PSSF funds as follows—29% for family support, 30% for family
preservation, 21% for time-limited reunification, and 20% for adoption promotion
and support. Given that family support and family preservation have received
dedicated funding the longest and that their service goals (and target populations) are
more expansive, program evaluators note that the two newest services categories—
time-limited family reunification and adoption promotion and support—have become
“well-established in the continuum of PSSF-funded services.”11
At the same time, because states may choose to include the same given activity
in more than one service category, this spreading of resources across categories could
ideally mean that states have a full range of child and family services available to
those who are not yet in need of extensive child welfare services, those who need
such services to ensure that children and their parents can safely live together (rather
than be separated via foster care placement), those for whom the services are needed
to ensure a short foster care stay and permit early reunification, and those for whom
the services support successful creation and functioning of permanent adoptive
families.12
Effectiveness of Services
Congress required HHS to evaluate the effectiveness of programs funded under
Title IV-B, Subpart 2 as part of its initial approval of funding for family preservation
and family support services in the early 1990s. HHS used those funds to support
three large-scale evaluations. One looked at overall implementation issues for the
10 The statute provides that states must spend a “significant portion” of funds of each of the
four categories. HHS has interpreted this to mean that a state must spend 20% of the funds
allotted to it on each service category, unless the state can provide an “especially strong
rationale” for not doing this. See ACYF-CB-PI-04-01, Feb. 2, 2004.
11 James Bell Associates, Analysis of States’ Annual Progress and Services Reports and
Child and Family Services Plans (1999-2002), Apr. 2002, pp. 49-50. For FY2002, eight
states did not plan to spend at least 20% of their PSSF funds on either time-limited family
reunification or adoption promotion and support (but planned to use other state or federal
fund for these services). Data on PSSF spending for more recent years have not been
compiled or analyzed on a national basis.
12 The General Accounting Office (GAO) (now called the Government Accountability
Office) surveyed states on their FY2002 actual spending of PSSF funds. When compared
to the Bell Associates analysis of state’s planned spending PSSF funds in that year, the
GAO survey shows states reporting different spending proportions (for categories that most
closely match the PSSF categories). These were: family support/prevention—50%; family
preservation 12%; family reunification 9%; and adoption support and preservation services
11%. Apart from differences that might be attributed to actual versus estimated spending,
the overlapping nature of these service categories and various definitions employed by
GAO/states and James Bell (see preceding footnote) makes a strict comparison impossible.
U.S. General Accounting Office, Child Welfare: Enhanced Federal Oversight of Title IV-B
Could Provide States Additional Information to Improve Services” (GAO-03-956), Sept.
2003, p. 14.

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CRS-20
program, a second looked at the effectiveness of two particular models of family
preservation services (both providing relatively intensive casework) and, the third,
at the effectiveness of a very wide range of family support services. No similar large
scale evaluations of time-limited reunification services or of adoption promotion and
support services have been made. However, these services may in part be subsets of
some kinds of family preservation and family support programs. Further, Congress
amended the statutory language on evaluations in 2001 (P.L. 107-133) to include
specific research priorities. Among these are “promising program models in the
[PSSF] service categories ... particularly time-limited reunification services and post-
adoption services.”
Intensive Family Preservation Services. When Congress began
discussion of funding these services in the early 1990s, a great deal of optimism
existed about the ability of intensive family preservation services to cost-effectively,
reduce the number of placements in foster care. Since that time, multiple program
evaluations have not shown that intensive family preservation services lower
placement risk for the children and families they serve (when compared to children
and families receiving standard in-home casework services). In addition, both
children and families who received standard in-home casework services and those
receiving intensive family preservation services were found to have similar
(relatively low) levels of maltreatment recurrence (after initiation of the services) and
to exhibit similar levels of family functioning. In other words, receipt of intensive
family preservation services did not reduce out-of-home placement or maltreatment
recurrence, and did not improve family functioning beyond what normal casework
services achieved.13
These evaluations did not compare — nor where they designed to compare —
the placement outcomes for families receiving no services versus outcomes for those
who received services; and they should not be understood as proof that the families
served did not benefit from or need the services. Instead the evaluations were
designed to test whether a particular manner of delivering the same kinds of
caseworker activities (e.g., anything from help paying a utility bill to counseling
about effective and appropriate child discipline) could produce better outcomes for
children and families.
The most-scrutinized intensive family preservation services delivery model
(Homebuilders) provides that services must be initiated quickly (within 72 hours of
13 There have been multiple evaluations and synthesis reviews of studies, including studies
that used the most rigorous evaluation design (random assignment). Not all of these studies
made all of the findings mentioned in this paragraph; however, the finding that intensive
family preservation services do not reduce placement (when compared to children receiving
regular casework services) is well-established. This report discusses findings of the multi-
site HHS-funded evaluation of family preservation services which was conducted by Westat,
Chapin Hall Center for Children, and James Bell Associates. The report studied three sites
(in Louisville, KY, Memphis, TN, and seven counties in New Jersey) where a
“Homebuilders” model was applied, and a fourth (Philadelphia, PA) where a specialized
intensive family preservation services model was used. Overall the findings were similar
across these sites. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Evaluation of Family
Preservation and Reunification Programs, Final Report (Volumes 1 and 2), Dec. 2002.

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CRS-21
a “crisis” that precipitated imminent child removal), that they must be intensive
(caseworkers are to be assigned no more than two families to work with, must be
available to those families 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are expected to
swiftly offer any or all of a full range of material and clinical aids needed), and they
are to be of short duration (4-6 weeks). As these characteristics suggest, the target
population for the delivery of services via the Homebuilders model is families where
children are at imminent risk of removal. This is especially critical to the model’s
theory of effectiveness, which rests on an aspect of “crisis theory” and posits that a
family in crisis is at a juncture where it is particularly amenable to change.
In practice, and for a variety of reasons, providing intensive family preservation
services to families and children who are “imminent risk of foster care removal” has
proven difficult. In the four-site study contracted by HHS and jointly conducted by
Westat, the Chapin Hall Center for Children and James Bell Associates, the
evaluators found that even though special precautions were taken to ensure only
families at imminent risk were studied, very small percentages of the “control group
children” — those are children who were randomly assigned to receive regular
caseworker services rather than intensive family preservation services — were
actually placed in foster care within 30 days of their assignment to the study. The
share of control group children who were not placed in foster care during this time
period ranged from 89% to 95%. This was very similar to the share of experimental
group children not placed in foster care during the first 30 days after their assignment
to the study (89% to 99%).14
Given that targeting intensive family preservation services on children at
imminent risk for removal has been a problem for most or all of the evaluations of
this service delivery model, and that for the multi-site HHS study the evaluators
developed special tools meant to ensure only families most at risk were included in
the study, researchers suggest that optimal targeting may never be achieved. These
evaluators also questioned whether many families coming into contact with child
welfare services — and referred to family preservation services — understand
themselves to be at a crisis point. Noting that the lives of families served “are often
full of difficulties — externally imposed and internally generated” they suggest that
the imminent removal of a child might simply be understood as part of a set of
ongoing problems rather than as a crisis. For families with chronic problems, they
suggest, a short term dose of services — no matter how intense — would be unlikely
to resolve all or many of the chronic concerns. Noting that the intensive family
preservation services provided did not harm families, the evaluators also made it
clear that services for many families whose children are not in foster care are still
14 Ibid., pp. 9-1 through 9-4. While the low rate of foster care placement strongly suggests
that the evaluation did not successfully target families in which children were at imminent
risk of removal, the evaluators note that even looked at over the 18-month period during
which the study followed families, those that received intensive family preservation services
did not have a reduced likelihood of placement. Finally, even though placement was not
“imminent” for these families, they do appear to have been at greater risk for placement and
thus arguably in need of services; indeed 18 months after the study was initiated anywhere
from about one-fifth to more than one-third of the families receiving family preservation
services (as well as those in the control group who did not receive services) had experienced
at least one placement.

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CRS-22
needed. However, given the heterogeneity of the child welfare needs of these
families (child behavioral problems, child abuse, child neglect, suspected child abuse
or neglect, etc.), they suggest that a single service delivery model providing access
to relatively general services is unlikely to work for everyone.15
What Next for Family Preservation Services? The federal statute does
not provide that a specific family preservation services delivery model must be used
by states and HHS explicitly declined to do this when it issued regulations for
Subpart 2. In addition, the discouraging evaluation data on intensive family
preservation services is not new (some suggestions of the current findings were
available even as the program was being federally implemented in the middle 1990s).
States then have had ample time to adjust or otherwise change their models of service
delivery, although much remains to be learned about what the most effective services
and delivery of those services might be. Researchers have suggested more study of
the effectiveness of specific caseworker activities, more effective and more
selectively delivered parent training classes (which are a staple services in both
preservation and reunification cases) and different service delivery models, or
activities on behalf of specific subgroups of child welfare clients (e.g., young mothers
or families with substance abuse concerns) are needed.16
15 Ibid., pp. 9-11-9-20.
16 See for instance, Julia Littell and John R. Shuerman, “What Works Best for Whom? A
Closer Look at Intensive Family Preservation Services,” Children and Youth Services
Review 24 (Sept./Oct. 2002) 9/10:673-699, which compared subgroups of service recipients
(based on characteristics of presenting problems) and found that the likelihood of out-of-
home placement, subsequent maltreatment, or case closing was not affected by the duration
of services, service intensity, or provision of specific services. Joseph P. Ryan and John
R. Schuerman, “Matching family problems with specific family preservation services: a
study of service effectiveness,” Children and Youth Services Review 26 (Apr. 2004) 4:347-
372, which re-examined data on the provision of “problem-related” services to families who
were previously included in an experimental study group receiving intensive family
preservation services and who reported some difficulty paying bills; it found that provision
of clothing/furniture/supplies and housing assistance was associated with a reduced risk of
subsequent maltreatment, while participation in an income support program increased risk
of maltreatment; at the same time provision of cash aid and clothing/furniture supplies were
found to decrease the likelihood of out-of-home placement. Richard P. Barth, et al., “Parent-
Training Programs in Child Welfare Services: Planning for a More Evidence-Based
Approach to Serving Biological Parents,” Research on Social Work Practice 15 (Sept.
2005) 5:353-371, which shows that parent-training is widely “prescribed” by child welfare
agencies and by judges (even when poor parenting is not cited as a concern by the child
welfare worker) but that the training is often made available on an undifferentiated basis to
parents with children of a wide range of ages and with different relationships to the child
welfare agency and, also, that the effectiveness of these programs has been little studied.
Robert E. Lewis, “The Effectiveness of Families First Services: An Experimental Study,”
Children and Youth Services Review 27 (May 2005) 5:499-509, which looked at an
intensive, short-term, family-based intervention (based on adaptation of the “Teaching-
Family Model” and intensive family preservation services) delivered to families where child
behavioral problems were the issue; it found that families receiving the services reported
significant improvement in child behavior, physical care and resources, parental
effectiveness, and parent-child relationships (sustained over a number of months), when
(continued...)

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CRS-23
Need for In-Home Services. Apart from the specific way in-home services
are delivered to families there remains apparent need for services to families where
children have not been removed from their homes but have been maltreated in those
homes. Of the estimated 872,000 children found to be victims of child maltreatment
in FY2004, a little more than 40% received in-home services (following the
investigation that confirmed their maltreatment), an additional 19% were removed
to foster care while the remaining 41% of these child victims continued to live at
home and received no post-investigation services of any kind. While some of the
children may not have been served because their parents refused assistance offered
(unlike removal to foster care, parents generally must voluntarily participate in
services offered to intact families), researchers also note that there may not be enough
of the kind of services needed or there may be long waiting lists for the services.17
Beyond the substantial number of children and families arguably in need of
services who do not receive them, a case-level analysis of findings in the initial Child
and Family Services Review (CFSR) shows that states were less successful in
meeting the needs of children and families served in their own homes, than those
with children in foster care. This analysis found that in the on-site review of cases,
in-home cases were significantly more likely than foster care cases to receive an
“area needing improvement” rating for a number of key indicators related to ensuring
the well-being of children and families. These items in which in-home cases were
significantly more likely to receive this rating than foster care cases include those
related to —
! assessing child and family needs and providing needed services;
! involving children/families in case planning;
! adequate face-to- face worker visits with children; and
! ensuring that children receive services to meet their educational,
mental health and physical health needs.
In-home cases were also significantly more likely to be rated lower on the safety item
related to reducing risk of harm to children served than were foster care cases.18
This same study also reported on “common challenges” to better state
performance and while these may apply to either foster care or in-home cases, a
number are directly related to the indicators listed above and for which the on-site
16 (...continued)
compared to a control group.
17 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Child Maltreatment 2004, Washington,
D.C., 2006, pp. 83-84, Tables 6-3, 6-4.
18 General Finding From the Child and Family Services Review, no date or author given
(accessed Oct. 7, 2004), p. 30. This analysis required use of unpublished CFSR case files
and may have been prepared by James Bell Associates. The full report is online at
[http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/cwmonitoring/results/genfindings04/genfindings0
4.pdf].

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CRS-24
case reviews revealed specific weakness for in-home cases. Common challenges19
associated with those indicators and identified for many states, include —
! the agency doesn’t consistently provide sufficient services to address
risk of harm to children, particularly in the in-home services cases;
! the agency doesn’t consistently monitor families to assess service
participation and change in risk factors to protect children in their
homes and prevent removal;
! the agency doesn’t consistently provide appropriate services to meet
the identified needs of children and parents;
! fathers, mothers, and children (age appropriate) are not sufficiently
involved in case planning;
! the frequency of face-to-face contacts between workers and children
isn’t consistently sufficient to ensure children’s safety and well
being;20
! the agency is not consistent in providing services to meet children’s
identified education-related needs;
! the number of dentists/doctors in the state willing to accept
Medicaid is not sufficient to meet the need;
! there is a lack of mental health services for children; and
! the agency doesn’t consistently conduct mental health assessments.
In sum, while children in foster care are much discussed as the barometer of
states’ child welfare performance, states’ in-home case loads are generally more
sizeable than their foster care caseloads and the data suggest that not all families are
receiving needed services, nor are those receiving services having their needs fully
met.21
19 Ibid., pp. 8-10. The report identified “common challenges” among the 35 states where the
CFSR was conducted in FY2002-FY2004. (States reviewed in FY2001 were not included
because information was extracted using a content analysis of state final CFSR reports and
the format requirements were somewhat different for reports based on reviews done in that
year.) The report includes any issue found in at least one-third of those 35 states as a
“common challenge.” However, all of the issues listed in this report were noted as a
challenge for no fewer than one-half of those states.
20 See also U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General,
State Standards and Capacity to Track Frequency of Caseworker Visits with Children in
Foster Care (OEI-04-03-00350), Dec. 2005. This report does not deal with in-home cases.
However, it found that while most states had standards regarding the number of visits a child
in foster care should receive each month, more than half of the states could not produce
automated statewide reports of the number of caseworker visits actually received by
children, and that — of 20 states that could produce these reports — seven showed that
fewer than half of the foster care children were visited monthly (on average). (Most, but not
all of those states, had a monthly visit standard for children in foster care.)
21 The Child and Family Services Review is intended to comprehensively review a state’s
child welfare agency performance on behalf of the children and families it serves. An in-
depth case review of a sample of 50 cases (generally) was looked at as a part of each of
these reviews. Of these cases, half related to children in foster care and half were related
to children served in their homes. For more information, see CRS Report RL32968, Child
(continued...)

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CRS-25
Family Support Services. Where family preservation services may be
requested once a family has come to the attention of the child welfare agency (e.g.,
child maltreatment allegation and/or finding made), family support services seek to
reach families that have not reached that threshold. The central object of these
services is to ensure a child never experiences abuse or neglect and to improve the
functioning of parents on behalf of their children. Typically these services have been
provided by community agencies or groups — rather than by the state or local public
child welfare agency — and the “target family group” is much broader than those
typically served by the child welfare agency. Although family support services may
be described (and implemented) as intended for families “at-risk” of child abuse or
neglect, in theory they are designed to benefit any family in a particular community
or neighborhood. Overall, families that receive family support services (such as
parent training or child development classes) would seem much more likely to seek
out (or volunteer) for the service as opposed to families that may be offered these
same services for family preservation.
Study Design. Citing the vast range of programs that might fall under the
“family support” rubric, the Abt Associates researchers who conducted the HHS-
funded study opted to conduct a “meta-analysis” of program success.22 This
evaluation technique required the researchers to identify previously conducted studies
of a range of family support programs and to organize the data collected in these
studies in such a way that they could generate findings across these studies. For the
family support studies, the researchers coded information from 665 studies
(representing 260 different family support programs) that were conducted after 1965
in Canada, the United States or Great Britain.
Kinds of Programs Evaluated. To be included in the meta-analysis, a
study needed to evaluate a program that provided services intended to improve child
outcomes by strengthening the capacity of parents to support their children’s
development.23 Accordingly, nearly all the programs included in the meta-analysis
had goals of improved parenting (98%) and child development (91%). Most services
21 (...continued)
Welfare: State Performance on Child and Family Services Reviews, by Emilie Stoltzfus.
22 Abt Associates, National Evaluation of Family Support Programs, Volume A: The Meta-
Analysis, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C., 2001.
23 These studies included both quasi-experimental research findings and experimental
research findings (separately coded to allow for comparison). In addition, the researchers
coded descriptive information for 167 family support programs where the studies did not
have outcome information. This was done to ensure the full spectrum of family support
programs were included in the meta-analysis. However, based on this descriptive data the
researchers noted that while both evaluated and unevaluated programs had similar goals and
types of services, there were certain differences between the programs. Thus, they
concluded that the full range of family support programs has not been truly evaluated.
Descriptive differences they note are that evaluated programs were more likely to target their
services to a specific population and to use home visits as their primary mode of service
delivery, and they were less likely to use center-based early childhood education as a
primary mode of service delivery and to use para-professionals or non-professionals to
provide parenting education.

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CRS-26
were delivered in the family home (62%) but other settings (in descending order of
frequency) included hospital or clinic, school, community center, university -college,
and public or private agency. Home visits were a primary service delivery mode,
followed, in descending order of frequency, by parent meetings/classes/ groups,
parent-child classes/groups and group early education for children. Most programs
(87%) used at least some staff with a degree and formal training. Finally, although
the original family support programs were neighborhood-based and available to all
in the community, many programs target their family support to specific populations.
About 88% of the programs included in the meta-analysis study targeted their family
support on families believed to be at certain environmental risk (e.g., poverty, risk
of abuse or neglect, teen parenthood), those with certain biological risks (e.g., low-
birth weight baby, developmental delay, behavior problems) or a combination of
these populations. Most services were available to families for less than one year and
families received relatively small amounts of service (measured in number of hours
per month).
Findings. Overall, the meta-analysis showed that family support programs
have small but consistent and (statistically) significant positive effects in children’s
cognitive development and their social and emotional development.24 Programs that
had larger positive effects on children’s cognitive outcomes were those that focused
on children with special needs (either biological or developmental), or provided early
childhood education directly to children, or provided parents with opportunities for
peer support. Programs that used home visiting as a primary service had less effect
on children’s cognitive outcomes. Although on an overall basis, child safety was not
otherwise shown to be meaningfully affected, programs that targeted teen parents
with young children and combined case management with parent-child activities
were more effective in protecting children from accidental injury, abuse or neglect.
Finally, family support programs were not shown to have a meaningful effect on
children’s health and physical development.
With regard to parent/family outcomes, the study showed that overall family
support programs have small but consistent and statistically significant positive
effects in parenting attitudes and knowledge, parenting behavior, and family
functioning.25 Programs that used professional staff to help parents to be effective
adults, and that provide opportunities for parents to meet in support groups, were
more effective in producing positive outcomes for parents. The programs that had
greatest effect on parents’ attitudes towards and knowledge of child-rearing and child
development were those that work with special needs children and provided
opportunities for peer support. The meta-analysis found no or little meaningful effect
of family support programs on parent mental health, nor on family economic self-
sufficiency.
24 However, the researchers caution that in each of these cases “a small group of programs”
accounted for the statistically significant positive effect. That is more than half of the
studies reported an effect size that was considered not statistically significant.
25 However, the researchers caution that in each of these cases “a small group of programs”
accounted for the statistically significant positive effect. That is more than half of the
studies reported an effect size that was considered not statistically significant.

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CRS-27
Other Services. In contrast to the large scale family preservation and family
support studies, HHS has recently directed the PSSF evaluation funds towards
generally smaller scale projects that look at one kind of service or program design
(often at a single site). In recent years projects funded include those related to
strengthening and promoting healthy marriage, the meaning of termination of
parental rights for older foster children, fathers involvement in permanency planning
and child welfare casework, Early Head Start services provided to child welfare
families, interventions for substance abusing parents, post-adoption services, and
adoption promotion efforts, intensive family reunification efforts, and provision of
crisis nursery/respite care service. Research and/or evaluation is ongoing for most
of these projects.26
Planning and Reporting
The 1993 law (P.L. 103-66) establishing funding for children and family
services under Title IV-B, Subpart 2, both encouraged and required states to engage
in planning how these services would be delivered. The law requires states to consult
with “appropriate public and nonprofit private agencies” with experience in
administering services to children and families and to then (jointly with HHS)
prepare a five-year plan, which establishes the goals the state intends to accomplish
and describes the methods that will be used to measure progress toward
accomplishing those goals. It further requires states to annually review and report on
progress toward achieving these goals and to make any necessary adjustments to the
plan that reflect changed circumstances. States must continually be engaged in this
planning and review process. That is, every five years the state must establish a new
five-year plan and begin annual progress reviews and reports of that plan. Beyond
these requirements, the 1993 legislation encouraged states to take planning seriously
by permitting each state to use up to $1 million of its first year grant (FY1994) for
planning purposes and providing that this spending on planning did not need to be
matched with state spending.
The policy guidance and subsequent regulations from HHS further encouraged
and required this extensive planning. As ultimately implemented by HHS, the
regulation consolidated a number of child welfare program planning requirements
into a single Child and Family Services Plan. States submit this single five-year plan
(the most recent was due in June 2004 for the period FY2005-FY2009), and annual
progress reports. In addition to the requirements related to the PSSF programs, this
plan must include the assurances required for receipt of funds for Child Welfare
Services (Title IV-B, Subpart 1 of the Social Security Act), Basic State Grants
(Section 106 of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act), and the Chafee
Foster Care Independence Program and related Education and Training Vouchers
(both in Section 477 of the Social Security Act). Also, as part of the annual progress
26 See U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Second Biennial Report to the
Congress on Evaluation, Research and Technical Assistance Activities Supported by the
Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program, 2005 and U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, First Biennial Report to the Congress on Evaluation, Research and
Technical Assistance Activities Supported by the Promoting Safe and Stable Families
Program, 2003.

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CRS-28
report, states must estimate their total child welfare spending for the upcoming fiscal
year, across the full continuum of services and noting amounts used from all federal
funding streams (as well as state and local funding). Finally, HHS permits states to
use their PSSF funds for these planning purposes without having those funds count
towards the limit on use of PSSF funds which is set at 10%.
Both the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) and the final rule for
implementing Title IV-B, Subpart 2 emphasized the importance of collaborating
broadly when creating this plan to ensure the full continuum of child and family
services was considered and planned for and to leverage as many resources as
possible for the program’s purposes.27 Studying the implementation of the program,
James Bell Associates found that most states engaged in extensive planning and that
the focus on collaboration meant increased community and consumer involvement.
Initially, over the 14 states where implementation case studies were conducted, most
(8) developed a state-level collaborative body that made the decisions about how
PSSF funds would be used; that is to say the locus of decisionmaking was outside the
state child welfare agency. In part, this no doubt stems from the inclusion of family
support on an equal basis with family preservation in the statute. Where family
preservation has a long history of child welfare agency implementation, family
support was (and remains) outside the traditional child welfare agency purview.
Following passage of ASFA (P.L., 105-89) and the addition of two new service
categories (time-limited family reunification and adoption promotion and support)
— both of which were much more closely aligned with traditional child welfare
programs — the locus of decision-making shifted back toward the state child welfare
agency in the majority of the case study sites.28
Limited Information on Current Program. Since the Bell study, which
as one part of its implementation study made an analysis of the annual progress
reports submitted by states for FY1999-FY2002, there has been no comparable study
of state spending plans. That analysis showed that most states were spreading their
PSSF funding across all four categories. At the same time, that report noted that the
overlap in service categories — because family support and family preservation
might fund the same service (but presumably for a different population) and because
the newest service categories (time-limited reunification and adoption promotion and
support) could be understood as subsets of the initial service categories of family
support and family preservation — it was not easy to accurately report spending in
the statutorily defined categories. In addition, the consolidated planning and lack of
a single plan format made it hard to consistently track how funds were being spent
27 Proposed rule — 59 Federal Register 191 (Oct. 4, 1994), pp. 50646-50672. Final rule —
61 Federal Register 223 (Nov. 18, 1996), pp. 58632-58633. HHS did not revise these rules
following the addition of two new service categories by ASFA (P.L. 105-89) but has instead
issued policy guidance concerning changes necessitated by ASFA and subsequent
reauthorizations.
28 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Family Preservation and Family Support
Services Implementation Study, Final Report, Volume 1, Synthesis Report, James Bell
Associates, Inc., Arlington, VA, Apr. 30, 2003, pp. 45-60.

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CRS-29
across the states.29
The researchers suggested that how funds were used (or planned to be used)
might better be understood based on where the service was delivered (in the home,
child welfare office, school, community center, clinic, etc.) and/or who the service
was targeted on (families in process of reunification, families with recently reported
abuse or neglect, teenage parents, parents of children with problem behavior, etc.).
The report did track the planned use of PSSF funds for 17 specific kinds of activities
between FY1999-FY2002. These included home visiting and family centers,
information and referral, recreation, basic needs, employment services, health
services, child care, prevention services, parent support, parent skills training,
mentoring, respite care, domestic violence, drug/alcohol assessment/treatment,
counseling/mental health services, “family preservation” (more narrowly defined than
the statute), time-limited family reunification and adoption promotion and support.
Although the researchers had increasing difficulty in linking PSSF funding to specific
activities (due to consolidation of program planning and reporting), they noted
especially large drops in the number of states reporting that they planned to use these
funds for child care (decreased from 21 states in FY1999 to 5 for FY2002), parent
support and skills training (decreased from 27 states to ll states and from 33 states to
12 respectively) and “family preservation”(decreased from 34 states to 19 states).
Reporting Requirements. The PSSF reporting requirements are, for the
most part, a subset of the planning requirements. States must send their five-year
plans to HHS and as a part of their Annual Progress Review and Report, are required
to provide separate descriptions of the family preservation, family support, time-
limited family reunification and adoption promotion and support services they intend
to provide under the plan in the upcoming year; the populations to be served; and the
geographic areas where the services will be available. While these plans must be
made available to both HHS (states are currently asked to send them to regional
offices, rather than to the central Washington, D.C. office), and the public, they are,
for the most part, not produced in any standard format and are not necessarily easy
to compare or collect. Further all of the reporting requirements are prospective —
providing information on what a state plans to do with its money rather than what is
has actually done with the money.
Distribution of Funds
The bulk of funding provided under the Promoting Safe and Stable Families
program is provided to states, territories and tribes to support services for children
and families. However, the statute requires that some of the program funding be set
aside for related purposes, including program evaluation, research, training and
technical assistance and for grants to highest state courts to assess and implement
improvements to their handling of child welfare proceedings. Table 3 shows how
the statute directs PSSF funds to be reserved for each of the purposes funded.
29 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Analysis of States’ Annual Progress and
Services Reports and Child and Family Services Plans (1999-2002), The Family
Preservation and Family Support Services Implementation Study, James Bell Associates,
Arlington, VA, Apr. 5, 2002, pp. 34-46.

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CRS-30
Table 3. Statutory Distribution of Funds
for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program
Share of
Share of any
mandatory discretionary
Entity funded
funds
funds
Distribution
Tribes (for child
1%
2% Allotted based on relative share of children
welfare services)
among all eligible Indian tribes.
Highest state courts
$10
3.3% Minimum allotment of $85,000 with
(for improved handling
million
remainder divided among eligible courts
of child welfare
based on their state’s relative share of
proceedings)
population under age 21.
HHS (for research,
$6 million
3.3% Discretion of HHS (but guided by funding
evaluation, technical
purposes in Section 435 of the Social
assistance and training)
Security Act).
Territories (Puerto
All
All Allotted using formula provided for
Rico, Guam, Virgin
remaining
remaining distribution of funds under Title IV-B,
Islands, Northern
funds
funds Subpart 1 of the Social Security Act (Child
Mariana Islands, and
Welfare Services).
American Samoa)
States (including the
Allotted based on a state’s relative share of
District of Columbia
children receiving food stamps.

Source: Table prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
State Formula Allotment and Match. States are entitled to receive their
full allotment of Promoting Safe and Stable funds or up to 75% of their total
spending under the program, which ever is less. Allotment of both mandatory and
any discretionary funding is determined by each state’s average relative share of
children receiving food stamps (based on the most recent three years of data). For
FY2005 there was a total of $367 million funds for allotment to states. (Table 4 at
the end of this report shows allotment amounts, by state, for FY2005 and FY2006,
estimated.)
Tribes and Territories. In general, tribes and territories are eligible to
receive Promoting Safe and Stable Family funds provided that they meet each of the
statutory state plan requirements. However, the law permits HHS to exempt an
Indian tribe from any state plan requirement it determines “would be inappropriate
to apply to the Indian tribe, taking into account the resources, needs, and other
circumstances” of the tribe.30
All five territories (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto
Rico, and the Virgin Islands) receive Promoting Safe and Stable Families funds. By
statute, territorial allotments are based on the formula that is used to distribute Child
Welfare Services funds under Title IV-B, Subpart 1 of the Social Security Act. Each
territory receives a minimum allotment of $70,000 and the remaining funds are
30 Territories may submit a consolidated social services funding request — instead of
separate state plan applications — for a variety of social service programs, including PSSF.
Provisions for this are elsewhere in federal regulations.

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CRS-31
distributed based on the assumption that each territory has low per capita income and
on the relative share of the population under age 21 in the territory. Out of a total of
$13.9 million available to the territories in FY2005, allotment amounts ranged from
a little more than a quarter million dollars (American Samoa) to $7.7 million (Puerto
Rico).
Tribal allotments are made out of funds set-aside for this purpose (1% of
mandatory funds and 2% of any discretionary funds appropriated) and based on the
relative share of children among all Indian tribes with approved Promoting Safe and
Stable Families plans. However, the statute prohibits approval of an Indian tribe’s
plan if the tribe’s allotment would be less than $10,000. In FY2005, out of the $5.0
million in PSSF funding set aside for tribes, about 90 tribes/tribal organizations
received allotments and those allotments ranged from a little above $10,000 to about
$911,000.31
Evaluation, Research, Training, and Technical Assistance. HHS
used funds set aside from the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program to
evaluate implementation of the initial family support and family preservation
program and to evaluate services as well. The 2001 amendments provide that HHS
must give priority consideration to research and evaluation of
! promising models for delivering services in each of the service
categories funded by PSSF, but especially post-adoption services
and time-limited reunification services;
! multi-disciplinary service models designed to address parental
substance abuse and to reduce its impacts on children;
! the efficacy of approaches directed at families with specific
problems and children of specific age ranges;
! the outcomes of adoptions finalized after enactment of ASFA.
With regard to providing technical assistance, the law now provides that “to the
extent funds are available,” HHS must provide assistance to states and tribes to help
them develop research-based protocols for identifying families where children are
at risk of abuse or neglect and to develop treatment models for such families
(especially those where substance abuse is of concern). This assistance should also
be given to help implement programs “with well-articulated theories of how the
intervention will result in desired changes among families at risk” and to put in effect
methods to ensure that services match those recommended by such treatment models.
Finally, this assistance should help states and tribes ensure that post-adoption
services meet the needs of adoptive families and that few adoptions are disrupted.
The 2001 amendments to the program newly required HHS to submit biennial
31 By contrast, tribal allotments under the Child Welfare Services program (Title IV-B,
Subpart 1) are not provided by a set-aside but are taken out of the amount allotted by
formula to the given state in which the tribal children live (and based on the tribal
population under age 21); tribes and tribal organizations do not have to meet the $10,000
threshold to qualify for Child Welfare Services funding. For FY2005, $5.7 million in Child
Welfare Services funding was allotted to more than 350 tribes/tribal organization and the
allotment amounts ranged from less than $10 to just over $1 million.

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CRS-32
reports to Congress on its use of the research, evaluation and technical assistance
funds. The first of these reports was submitted to Congress in 2003 and a second was
submitted in 2005.
Court Funding. Finally, as discussed earlier, some funding for the Court
Improvement Program is also set-aside from the Promoting Safe and Stable Families
program. In addition, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171) provided
additional funding for Court Improvement grants. The CIP as it has operated and as
newly revised by P.L. 109-171 is discussed in more detail in a separate report. (See
CRS Report RL33350, Child Welfare: The Court Improvement Program.
Table 4, below, shows annual funding for the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families program since the FY1993 creation of this funding authority. All of the
court funding shown in Table 3 is derived from a set-aside of PSSF appropriation.
For FY2006 the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171) increased the
mandatory funding authorization level for the PSSF program to $345 million.32 The
statutory increase in FY2006 PSSF mandatory funding authorization was not
formally signed into law until February 2006 — well after the FY2006 appropriations
cycle was completed (during which Congress provided what was, at the time, the full
mandatory PSSF funding authorization of $305 million). Because of this, Congress
may still need to appropriate the additional $40 million to enable the Administration
to distribute these funds for FY2006.33
The final row of Table 3 shows appropriations for the Promoting Safe and
Stable Families Program appropriated as of early April 2006. If Congress
appropriates the additional mandatory dollars authorized, the total funding available
for the PSSF program in FY2006 would be $434 million. This increase would bring
the total funding for grants to states, tribes and territories to more than $412 million.
(The set-aside funding amount for courts and for research, evaluation and technical
assistance would remain the same as shown in Table 4.)
32 The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171) also appropriated $100 million in
funding for the Court Improvement Program funding of which $20 million is available for
FY2006. This money, which was appropriated outright in the legislation, is independent —
it is not a set-aside of the PSSF program funding — and is therefore not shown in Table 3.
33 The Administration appears to assume that Congress will appropriate this additional $40
million because its Congressional Budget Justifications for FY2007, indicate PSSF funding
(apart from the independent court dollars) as $434 million for FY2006 (and requests this
same funding level for FY2007).

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CRS-33
Table 4. Funding Provided for the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Program, by Year and Purpose
(in millions of dollars)
To assess and
Research,
improve handling evaluation, training
To provide services to
of child welfare
and technical
children and families
cases
assistance
Fiscal
States and
State highest
year
Territories
Tribes
courts
HHS
Total
1994
57.4
0.6
0
2
60
1995
137.5
1.5
5
6
150
1996
206.8
2.3
10
6
225
1997
221.6
2.4
10
6
240
1998
236.5
2.6
10
6
255
1999
256.3
2.8
10
6
275
2000
276.1
3.0
10
6
295
2001
286.0
3.1
10
6
305
2002
349.9
4.5
12.3
8.3
375
2003
376.8
5.0
13.3
9.3
404.4
2004
376.8
5.0
13.3
9.3
404.4
2005
376.1
5.0
13.3
9.3
403.6
367.4
4.8
12.9
8.9
394.1
2006a
407.4
4.8
12.9
8.9
434.1
Source: Table prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
a. The final FY2006 funding level for the program would be affected by enactment of S. 3525. The
funding amounts shown in the top line of this row reflect the current appropriations level.
However, S. 3525 would appropriate an additional $40 million in FY2006 mandatory program
funds (as authorized by P.L. 109-171). The bill would further would direct that all of these funds
must be distributed to states and territories for support of monthly caseworker visits (to be
available for spending through FY2009). If S. 3525 is enacted then, the funding amounts shown
in italics in the bottom line of this row would be the final amount.
Other State Plan Requirements
To qualify for Promoting Safe and Stable Families funding, states must ensure
that safety of children served will be the paramount concern in administering and
conducting services under this program. States may spend no more than 10% of their
federal allotment on program administration and must use “significant portions” of
the remaining funds to support each of the categories of services authorized by the
program. By policy guidance, HHS has established “significant” to mean 20% —
unless the state has an especially strong rationale to spend less than this on any of
the given service categories. They are required to coordinate the services under the
PSSF program with other federal or federally assisted programs that serve the same
populations and to assure that the same state agency that administers Child Welfare
Services (under Title IV-B, Subpart 1 of the Social Security Act) also administers the

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CRS-34
PSSF program. In addition, they must provide assurance that funds will not supplant
federal or non-federal funds used for existing services and activities (as of FY1992)
that promote the same purposes as this program.
Selected Federal Funding Programs
with Related Purposes
Some other federal programs share purposes similar to those of the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Program.
Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP). Authorized by
Title II of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) the Community-
Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP) program provides funds to each state
(including the District of Columbia), territories, and tribes to support community-
based services to prevent child maltreatment. The program purposes most closely
match the category of PSSF services described as “family support.” However, funds
under this program are not available for direct use by the state child welfare agency
but must be sent to community-based groups that provide family support and family
resource services.
Funds are distributed by formula to a lead state agency (which may or may not
be the state child welfare agency); the lead agency is responsible for ensuring
coordination of services and for distributing funds to community-based groups that
provide (or can refer families to) core family resource and support services. The
statute describes these core services to, among other things, include — parent
education, mutual support and self help; voluntary home visiting; and respite care.
Other services, which CBCAP local grantees may provide access to include referrals
to counseling for adoption (for those seeking to adopt or to relinquish a child for
adoption); child care, early childhood development and intervention services;
referrals to services and supports to meet special needs of families with children with
disabilities; referrals to job readiness services; referrals to educational services; life
management skills training; and others.
Like Title I of CAPTA, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
(HELP) and the House Education and Workforce committees have generally
exercised jurisdiction over this program. It was most recently amended and re-
authorized in 2003 (P.L. 108-36). That legislation raised the program’s authorization
level to $80 million for FY2004, and such sums as necessary for each of FY2005-
FY2008. However, the program has never received more than the $43 million that
was appropriated for it in FY2005. For FY2006 the program received $42 million
and the President’s Budget requests $42 million for CBCAP in FY2007.
Child Welfare Services. Authorized by Title IV-B, Subpart 1, Child Welfare
Services is the oldest federal program supporting state child welfare activities and

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CRS-35
was first authorized as part of the original 1935 Social Security Act.34 Program funds
are distributed to states (including the District of Columbia), territories, and tribes.
The funds may be used to support any, broadly defined child welfare service. These
services are intended to protect children who have been abused or neglected or are
at risk of maltreatment and may take various forms, ranging from counseling and
other supports for parents (intended to improve child well-being , prevent child abuse
and neglect and preserve a family), to removal of the children from their homes and
provision of services to parents to enable safe and appropriate return of children to
their own homes. When efforts to reunite are not appropriate or do not succeed, child
welfare services may include termination of parental rights, placement of the children
for adoption, and provision of post adoption services.
States may use Child Welfare Services, generally, for a wider range of activities
than are permitted under PSSF and a 2003 General Accounting Office (GAO) study
found that despite considerable overlap in the purposes, states used the bulk of their
Child Welfare Services and PSSF grants to fund significantly different activities. For
instance, while states reported spending both Child Welfare Services and PSSF funds
to support family support/prevention, family preservation, family reunification, and
adoption support and preservation services, they reported using just 11% of their
Child Welfare Services funds for these purposes compared to 82% of their PSSF
funds. States expended the largest share of Child Welfare Funds (71%) for child
welfare worker salaries, administration and management, child protective services,
and foster care maintenance payments. (PSSF expenditures for those purposes
equaled just 8% of state PSSF spending.35)
The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee
have exercised jurisdiction over Child Welfare Services. While this funding stream
has an indefinite discretionary funding authorization level of $325 million, it has
never received more than $295 million in a given year. For FY2006 the program is
funded at $287 million.
Other Child Welfare and Related Programs. Several additional child
welfare programs primarily support research or demonstration projects related to
adoption, as well as to services to help certain families at special risk of child abuse
or neglect. Each of these programs is funded by discretionary appropriations and any
appropriated funds are distributed on a competitive basis to eligible entities. These
programs include Adoption Opportunities, Abandoned Infants Assistance and
Adoption Awareness. Funding authorization for the Adoption Opportunities
(FY2006 funding — $27 million) and Abandoned Infants Assistance Act (FY2006
funding — $12 million) was extended through FY2008 by P.L. 108-36 (handled in
the Senate HELP and House Education and Workforce Committee). Funding
34 The program was originally authorized in Title V, Part 3 of the Social Security Act and
was moved to a newly created Title IV-B by the Social Security Act Amendments of 1967.
35 General Accounting Office (since been renamed the Government Accountability Office)
(GAO), Child Welfare: Enhanced Oversight of Title IV-B Could Provide States Additional
Information to Improve Services, GAO-03-956, Sept. 2003, p. 14. Data are based on
responses from 46 states regarding use of Child Welfare Services funds and 44 states
regarding use of PSSF funds.

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CRS-36
authorization for the Adoption Awareness programs (which were included in the
Public Health Services Act) expired with FY2005 but the programs nonetheless
received FY2006 funding of $13 million. The House Energy and Commerce and
Senate HELP committees handled the 2000 legislation that created Adoption
Awareness program authority.36
Additional programs that support primarily the family support goals of PSSF
include Early Head Start, Head Start, and the Healthy Start Initiative. Like family
support programs in general, the populations served by these programs are much
broader then those generally served by the child welfare population and these
programs are not further described here.37
Some Non-dedicated Federal Funding Used for PSSF Purposes.
Many states also make use of federal funding streams that are not specifically or
exclusively provided for child welfare purposes but for which federal law includes
certain child welfare activities as purposes or permissible uses of funds. Measured
by state use of the funds for child welfare purposes, the largest of these are the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant, the Social Services
Block Grant (SSBG) and Medicaid. An Urban Insitute survey of state FY2002
spending on child welfare suggests that in that year states used $1.3 billion in funding
from these three sources to support all prevention (e.g., prevent teen-age pregnancy,
prevent drug use, prevent child abuse), family reunification, and in-home support
services, as well as child protective services (screening and investigating reported
child maltreatment).
While state child welfare agencies have in recent years had access to
considerable TANF, SSBG and Medicaid funds, because these funds are not
appropriated solely for child welfare agencies they cannot necessarily count on their
continued availability. Instead, their access to these federal funds is generally
conditioned on the funding decisions made by others in the state (e.g., discretion
about how funds are used may rest with the state legislature or in a different state
executive agency) and may further be limited by federal legislative and
administrative changes to these programs.
For instance, the current Administration has sought to limit state use of certain
Medicaid services for a range of purposes, including child welfare, and the Deficit
Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171) enacted certain language intended to clarify
how states may use Medicaid funds on behalf of children in foster care. Further, the
ability of state child welfare agencies to use TANF funds may be affected by
36 See also CRS Report RS22178, Child Welfare: Funding and Program Reauthorizations
in the 109th Congress, by Emilie Stoltzfus.
37 HHS is currently funding a five year (Sept. 2002-Sept. 2007) Early Head Start/Child
Welfare Services Initiative/Evaluation, which is designed to allow grantees to demonstrate
how to best serve children in the child welfare system using the Early Head Start model.
There are 24 projects serving 397 child welfare children (ranging from 4 to 40 per site).
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Second Biennial Report to the Congress
on Evaluation, Research and Technical Assistance Activities Supported by the Promoting
Safe and Stable Families Program, 2005, p. 10.

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CRS-37
increased work requirements included in the Deficit Reduction Act (which are
expected to necessitate greater state spending of TANF on job related costs such as
training and child care).
Finally, Congress has greatly reduced the amount of funding for SSBG, which
includes among its five primary purposes: “preventing or remedying neglect, abuse,
or exploitation of children and adults unable to protect their own interests, or
preserving, rehabilitating or reuniting families.” Annual funding for SSBG stood at
$2.8 billion when the Congress enacted new child welfare services funding (now
called the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program) in 1993. In 1996, however,
P.L. 104-193 reduced the SSBG entitlement cap and funding has since declined to
$1.7 billion annually.38
Allotment of PSSF Funds to States
Table 5 shows allotment of PSSF funds by state for FY2005 and FY2006.
Funds are allotted to states based on their relative share of children (under age 18)
receiving food stamps. Data used to make this determination are derived from the
most current three years of available food stamps data. The allotment amounts
shown for FY2006 are estimated at the current appropriation level (without the
additional $40 million in authorized mandatory funds appropriated) and at the
expected funding level (with the appropriation of the additional $40 million in
mandatory funds).
38 For FY2006, Congress appropriated an additional $550 million in SSBG funds. However,
this money was in response to hurricane needs and the bulk of the money (94%) was
distributed to five states determined most affected by the hurricanes. See CRS Report 94-
953, Social Services Block Grant (Title XX of the Social Security Act), by Melinda Gish.

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CRS-38
Table 5. Final FY2005 and Estimated FY2006 Allotments
of Promoting Safe and Stable Funds
Estimated FY2006 with and without
$40 million in additional mandatory funds as
proposed to be appropriated by S. 3525
FY2005 final
Without
With
State
in millions of dollars
Alabama
$8.23
$8.04
$8.92
Alaska
0.86
0.84
0.93
Arizona
8.21
8.02
8.89
Arkansas
5.44
5.31
5.89
California
43.42
42.42
47.04
Colorado
3.33
3.25
3.61
Connecticut
2.85
2.79
3.09
Delaware
0.78
0.76
0.85
District of Columbia
1.25
1.23
1.36
Florida
16.66
16.27
18.05
Georgia
12.55
12.26
13.59
Hawaii
1.75
1.71
1.89
Idaho
1.35
1.32
1.46
Illinois
16.35
15.98
17.72
Indiana
7.71
7.53
8.35
Iowa
2.47
2.42
2.68
Kansas
2.53
2.47
2.74
Kentucky
7.58
7.41
8.21
Louisiana
11.44
11.17
12.39
Maine
1.66
1.62
1.80
Maryland
4.10
4.01
4.44
Massachusetts
4.94
4.82
5.35
Michigan
14.15
13.83
15.33
Minnesota
4.10
4.01
4.44
Mississippi
6.33
6.19
6.86
Missouri
9.13
8.92
9.89
Montana
1.10
1.07
1.19
Nebraska
1.66
1.62
1.79
Nevada
1.77
1.73
1.91
New Hampshire
0.72
0.70
0.78
New Jersey
5.91
5.78
6.40
New Mexico
3.53
3.45
3.82
New York
24.19
23.64
26.21
North Carolina
10.52
10.28
11.40
North Dakota
0.69
0.67
0.75
Ohio
13.12
12.82
14.22
Oklahoma
6.03
5.89
6.53
Oregon
5.73
5.60
6.21
Pennsylvania
13.27
12.97
14.38
Rhode Island
1.49
1.45
1.61
South Carolina
7.29
7.12
7.89
South Dakota
0.90
0.88
0.98
Tennessee
10.39
10.15
11.25

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CRS-39
Estimated FY2006 with and without
$40 million in additional mandatory funds as
proposed to be appropriated by S. 3525
FY2005 final
Without
With
State
in millions of dollars
Texas
35.65
34.83
38.62
Utah
1.87
1.83
2.03
Vermont
0.58
0.57
0.63
Virginia
6.32
6.17
6.85
Washington
5.92
5.78
6.41
West Virginia
3.54
3.46
3.83
Wisconsin
5.38
5.25
5.82
Wyoming
0.44
0.43
0.47
Subtotal — states
$367.17
$358.71
$397.76
All territories
8.88
8.68
9.62
All tribes
5.02
4.83
4.83
Courts
13.25
12.94
12.94
Evaluation, research
9.25
8.94
8.94
and technical asst.
Subtotal — set-asides
$36.41
$35.39
$36.34
Total
$403.59
$394.10
$434.10
Source: Table prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). FY2005 “final” allotments
are as given by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in Attachment A of its April 29,
2005 Program Instruction (ACYF-CB-PI-05-04). Both of the FY2006 estimated allotments assume
discretionary funding for FY2006 of $89.1 million and that each state will receive the same share of
funds, relative to all other states, that it received in FY2005(as shown here). The estimated FY2006
allotment “without” assumes mandatory program funding of $305 million. The estimated FY2006
allotment “with” assumes mandatory program funding of $345 million and, as would be provided by
S. 3525, that none of the $40 million in additional mandatory funding appropriated by that act would
be made available to tribes.

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CRS-40
Table 6. Selected Provisions of the Child and Family Services Act of 2006 (S. 3525 as passed
by the Senate on September 20) compared to Current Law and Earlier Versions of S. 3525
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Short title
Not applicable.
The Improving Outcomes for
The Child and Family
The Child and Family
Children Affected by Meth
Services Improvement Act of
Services Improvement Act of
Act of 2006 [Sec. 1].
2006 [Sec. 1].
2006 [Sec. 1].
The Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program (PSSF, Title IV-B, Subpart 2)
Program
For FY2006 authorizes Reauthorizes mand atory Same as July 13 Senate bill Same as July 13 Senate bill
funding
mandatory funding of $345 funding of $345 million plus [Sec. 3].
[Sec. 3].
authorized
million; for each of FY2002- discretionary funding of $200
F Y 2 0 0 6 a u t h o r i z e s million for each of FY2007-
discretionary funding of $200 FY2011 [Sec. 3].
million [Sec. 436 and 437].
FY2006
The Deficit Reduction Act Appropriates $40 million in Same as July 13 Senate bill Same as July 13 Senate bill
mandatory
i nc r e a s e d t he F Y 2 006 additional PSSF funding for [Sec. 8].
[Sec. 3].
funding
m a n d a t o r y f u n d i n g FY2006 to provide mandatory
authorization for the PSSF funding authorized for the
program to $345 million [P.L. program [Sec. 3].
109-171, Sec. 7402].
States may spend FY2006 Same as current law.
States may spend the States may sp end the
funds in either FY2006 or
additional $40 million in additional $40 million in any
FY2007 [Sec. 434].
FY2006 PSSF funds in any fiscal year through FY2009;
fiscal year through FY2008 all of the funds must be used
[Sec. 8].
for support of caseworker
visits; and none are to be
reserved for tribes [Sec. 3].
Limit on
A state may spend no more Same as current law.
Effective with FY2007, no Same as House bill except that
administrative than 10% of the federal PSSF
more than 10% of the total the new limitation is not
expenditures
funds it receives on program
program funds federal and effective until first day of
administration; it must provide
non-federal may be spent for FY2008 [Sec. 3].
at least 25% of the total
administrative purposes [Sec.
program costs in non-federal
3].
dollars to receive its full
federal allotment [Sec. 434].

---

CRS-41
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Tribal child
Reserves 1% of the mandatory Increases the set-aside of PSSF Same as July 13 Senate bill Same as July 13 Senate bill
and family
PSSF authorization and 2% of funds for tribal child and [Sec. 3].
[Sec. 5].
services
any discretionary PSSF family services programs to
funding under appropriations for tribal child 3% of mandatory funds
PSSF
and family service programs authorized plus 3% of any
[Sec. 436 and Sec. 437].
d i s c r e t i o n a r y f u n d s
appropriated [Sec. 5].
Provides that these set-asides Same as current law.
Provides that the 3% set-aside Provides that the 3% set aside
are to be made before any
from mandatory funds must be from mandatory funds must be
other reservation of program
made after the set-aside of $40 made after the set-aside of $40
funds [Sec. 433].
million to support monthly m i l l i o n f o r m o n t h l y
caseworker visits [Sec. 4].
caseworker visits and grants to
improve the outcomes of
children affected by meth or
other substance abuse [Sec. 5].
[Minimum set-aside: $3.45 [Minimum set-aside: $10.35 [Minimum set-aside: $9.15 [Same as House.]
million; maximum set aside: million; maximum set-aside: million; maximum set-aside:
$7.45 million.]
$16.35 million.]
$15.15 million.]
Access to
Provides that no tribe may Provides that a group of tribes Same as July 13 Senate bill Same as July 13 Senate bill
tribal child
receive PSSF funding if the (consortium) may apply [Sec. 3].
[Sec. 5].
and family
allotment of funds it would together for PSSF funding and
services
receive (based on its relative that the allotment amount is
funding under share of tribal population based on the consortium’s
PSSF
under age 21) would be under combined relative share of the
$10,000 [Sec. 432].
tribal population under age 21
(among all eligible tribes)
[Sec. 5].
Requirements
Provides that the U.S. Same as current law.
Eliminates the ability of HHS Permits HHS to exempt tribes
for tribal
Department of Health and
to exempt tribes from PSSF from PSSF plan requirements
funding under Human Services (HHS) may
plan requirements [Sec. 3].
that limit use of federal
PSSF
exempt a tribe from any of the
p r o g r a m f u n d s f o r
PSSF plan requirements that it
administrative purposes to
d e t e r m i n e s w o u l d b e
10% and requires that
inappropriate for the tribe
“significant portions” of these
[Sec. 432].
funds be spent on certain
categories of services [Sec. 5].

---

CRS-42
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Monitoring
No
provision.
Requires states to
develop No provision.
No provision.
and
procedures that provide
assessment of
additional assessment of any
certain
family seeking to provide
prospective
foster care or to adopt more
foster and
than 4 children or more than 1
adoptive
sibling group (or a different
families
number of children or sibling
groups if approved by HHS).
The plan must provide that the
additional assessment is to
occur before the foster or
adoptive placements are made
and, in the case of a foster care
family, that there will be
ongoing monitoring [Sec 6].
Reports on
A state is required to create a Requires states to update Requires HHS to create and Same as July 13 Senate bill
Title IV-B
5-year child and family expenditure reporting forms biennially submit to the Senate except that states must provide
program
services plan stating its goals (currently used to show Finance and House Ways and actual expenditures for most
expenditures
for its program. It must intended expenditures) to show Means committees a report recent year in which spending
annually review the plan and actual expenditures by certain showing — by state, territory, of federal program funds is
report the amount of money it categories for both Child and tribe — the level of complete.
intends to spend for each of Welfare Services and PSSF expenditures and the programs
the four PSSF (Title IV-B, families. The updated forms and activities funded under
Subpart 2) service categories. are to be submitted to HHS no PSSF and Child Welfare
A state must also report on the later than June 30 of each year Services; and the number of
service programs it intends to (with the first such updates due children and families served
make available under PSSF, on June 30, 2007 and showing under the programs. HHS must
the populations to be served FY2006 expenditures). HHS also report on how spending
and the places those services would be required to compile under these program helps
will be available. States must these forms and submit them achieve the child and family
also report information on to the Senate Finance and services goals established by
services to be provided with House Ways and Means each state, tribe, and territory
Child Welfare Services (Title committees no later than in their required planning
IV-B, Subpart 1) funding and September 30 of each year processes for these Title IV-B
where those services are to be (beginning with September 30, programs [Sec. 9].
available. The reports are to be 2007) [Sec. 6].
submitted to HHS by June 30
of each year [Sec. 432].

---

CRS-43
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Targeting of $40 Million in PSSF Funds for Special Purposes
Support for
No provision
Reserves $40 million of Reserves $40 million of the For formula grants to states
monthly
mandatory PSSF funds in mandatory PSSF funds in and territories to support
caseworker
F Y 2 0 0 7 - F Y 2 0 1 1 f o r FY2006-FY2011 for formula monthly caseworker visits
visits and
competitive grants to regional grants to states and territories reserves: $40 million in
grants to
partnerships to increase the to support monthly caseworker FY2006 (available to spend
improve
well-being of and improve the visits for children in foster care through FY2009); $5 million
outcomes for
permanency outcomes for [Sec. 4].
in FY2008; $10 million in
children
c h i l d r e n a f f e c t e d b y
FY2009; and $20 million in
affected by
methamphetamine abuse and
each of FY2010 and FY2011.
meth or other
addiction [Sec. 2].
substance
For competitive grants to
abuse
regional partnerships to
improve outcomes for children
affected by abuse of meth or
other substances reserves: $40
million in FY2007: $35
million in FY2008; $30
million in FY2009 and $20
million in each of FY2010 and
FY2011 [Sec. 4].
Distribution of No provision
Requires HHS to make grants Entitles each state and territory Funds for competitive grants
reserved funds
to regional partnerships on a to an allotment of the $40 to regional partnerships: Same
for targeted
competitive basis. A regional million (based generally on as July 13 Senate bill except
purposes
partnership must consist of allotment formula for PSSF that a regional partnerships
t wo o r mo r e e n t i t i e s program) provided that it must in nearly all cases include
(representing child welfare, meets specific requirements. the state child welfare agency
h e a l t h , me n t a l h e a l t h , These include that it track the (optional if the partnership
ed ucatio n , l a w, trib al, frequency and location of includes tribal entities) and
judicial/court or related caseworker visits to children in r e g i o n a l p a r t n e r s h i p s
agenci e s , providers or foster care and that this demonstrating evidence of
personnel). An applicant tracking shows that, as of meth or other substance abuse
partnership must show that FY2008, no less than 90% of may be eligible applicants. In
abuse of meth by parents or the foster children in the state considering which applicants
caretakers has increased the are visited monthly (or that the to award grants, HHS must,
number of children in out-of- state is making “requisite after taking into account the
home placements (or those at- progress” toward this goal to level of need demonstrated by
risk of this placement). The enable it to reach that standard a l l a p p l i c a n t r e g i o n a l

---

CRS-44
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
grants must be for no less than no later than October 1, 2011). partnership, give greater
$500,000 and no more than $1 Further a state may not use weight to those applicant
million per fiscal year and these funds to supplant federal partnerships that can show the
must be made for no less than Title IV-E funds available for negative effect of meth abuse
2 years and no more than 5 the same purposes and a state on child welfare in their region
years. HHS must take into must agree to spend $1 in non- [Sec. 4].
account demonstrated need of federal funds to support
applicants in awarding these monthly caseworker visits of Funds for formula grants to
grants [Sec. 2].
children in foster care for states and territories for
every $3 in federal funds it support of monthly caseworker
receives for this purpose. [Sec. visits: Same allotment formula
4].
(generally) for receipt of
regular program funds. State
may not supplant federal Title
IV-E funds available for the
same purposes. In addition, to
receive these funds in FY2008
through FY2011, a state must
agree to spend $1 in non-
federal funds to support
monthly caseworker visits for
every $3 in federal funds it
receives for this purpose [Sec.
4].
Monthly Caseworker Standard
Standards for
No provision.
No provision.
[As described above, provides No later than the first day of
frequency and
that states, as a condition of FY2008, a state, as a part of its
content of
receiving the funds reserved Child Welfare Services (Title
caseworker
for monthly caseworker visits IV-B, Subpart 1) state plan,
visits
must be able to show that 90% must describe its standards for
of foster care children are the content and frequency of
visited monthly or that caseworker visits to children in
requisite progress toward foster care. At a minimum the
meeting that standard by the standards must ensure that the
first day of FY2012 is being visits are well-planned,
made.]
focused on issues relevant to
case planning and occur at
least monthly [Sec. 7].

---

CRS-45
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Enforcement
Not applicable
No provision.
[As described above, states HHS may not provide FY2008
of Standards
must report data on the Child Welfare Services
for frequency
percentage of foster care funding to a state unless the
and content of
children visited at least state has provided it with data
caseworker
monthly and at least 90% of showing (for FY2007) the
visits
children in foster care (or percentage of children in foster
requisite progress toward that care who received a monthly
standard) is a condition of visit from their caseworker and
receipt of certain funds the percentage of the visits that
reserved from the Promoting occurred where the child lives.
Safe and Stable Families
program.]
No later than June 30, 2008,
HHS must with the state
outline the steps (including
target percentages to be
reached) that the state must
take to ensure that by October
1, 2011, at least 90% of the
children in foster care under
the responsibility of the state
a r e v i s i t e d b y t h e i r
caseworkers on a monthly
basis and that most of the visits
occur where the child lives.
States are required to provide
States that fail to make the
at least 25% of the total
requisite progress toward the
program costs (matching
monthly caseworker visit
dollars) in order to receive
standard must expend more
their full federal allotment of
state (matching) dollars to
Child Welfare Services funds
receive their full federal
[Sec. 423].
allotment of Child Welfare
Services funds. The increase is
based on the degree to which a
state fail to make progress
toward the standard: minimum
penalty- state must provide
26% of the total program cost;
maximum penalty states must
provide 30% [Sec. 7].

---

CRS-46
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Child Welfare Services (Title IV-B, Subpart 1)
Program
A u t h o r i z e s a n n u a l Same as current law.
M a i n t a i n s t h e a n n u a l Same as House bill [Sec. 6].
authorization
discretionary funding up to
d i s c r e t i o n a r y f u n d i n g
$325 million for Child Welfare
authorization of $325 million.
S e r v i c e s . T he fund i n g
Limits this authorization to
authorization is provided on an
FY2007-FY2011 [Sec. 5].
indefinite (no year limit) basis
[Sec. 420].
Purpose
Provides that funds are to Same as current law.
Restates the purpose of this Same as House bill except that
enable the United States,
program to include, generally, the purpose four is restated as
though HHS, to cooperate with
the aims of child welfare — promoting the safety,
state public welfare agencies in
services described in the permanence, and well-being of
establishing, extending and
current law definition and children in foster care and
strengthening child welfare
deletes the definition of child adoptive families [Sec. 6].
services [Sec. 420].
welfare services. Adds explicit
reference to services provided
Defines child welfare services
by community-based agencies
(for all of Title IV-B) as
(as a part of the purpose) and
“public social services”
reference to support for a well-
intended to — protect and
qualified child welfare
promote the welfare of all
workforce.
c h i l d r e n , i n c l u d i n g
ha nd i c apped, ho meless,
Specifically, defines the
dependent, or neglected
purpose of the Title IV-B,
children;
Subpart 1 program as “to
— prevent, remedy or assist in
promote state flexibility in the
the solution of problems which
development and expansion of
may result in the neglect,
a coordinated child and family
ab use, exploitatio n, o r
services program that utilizes
delinquency of children; —
community-based agencies
prevent the unnecessary
and ensures all children are
separation of children from
raised in safe, loving families,
their families by identifying
by —
family problems, assisting
1) protecting and promoting
families in resolving their
the welfare of all children;
problems, and preventing
2) preventing the neglect,
breakup of the family (where
abuse, or exploitation of
the prevention of the child
children;
removal is desirable and
3) supporting at-risk families

---

CRS-47
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
possible);
through services which allow
— restore to their families
children, where appropriate, to
children who have been
remain safely with their
removed by provision of
families or return to their
services to the child and the
families in a timely manner;
families;
4) promoting the safety,
— place children in suitable
permanence, and well-being of
adoptive homes, in cases
children in foster care; and
where restoration to the
5 ) p r o v i d i n g t r a i n i n g ,
biological families is not
professional development and
possible or appropriate and;
support to ensure a well-
— assure adequate care of
qualified child welfare
children away from their
workforce” [Sec. 5].
homes, in cases where the
child cannot be returned home
or placed for adoption
[Sec. 425].

---

CRS-48
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Limit on
No provision.
No provision.
Requires a state to assure, as of Same as House bill except that
administrative
FY2007, that no more than the effective date is FY2008
expenditures
10% of its expenditures under [Sec. 6].
the Child Welfare Services
p r o g r a m wi l l b e f o r
administrative purposes [Sec.
5].
To receive their full allotment Same as current law.
As of FY2007, prohibits HHS Same as House bill except that
of federal Child Welfare
from making any payment of the effective date is FY2008
Services funds a state must
Child Welfare Services funds [Sec. 6].
provide at least 25% of the
to a state for administrative
total program costs.
costs that are above 10% of the
total (federal and non-federal)
expenditures for the program
[Sec. 5].
No provision.
No provision.
Defines administrative costs as Same as House bill [Sec. 6].
program costs related to
p r o c u r e m e n t , p a y r o l l
ma n a g e me n t , p e r s o n n e l
functions (other than the part
of a supervisor’s salary
a t t r i b u t a b l e t o d i r e c t
supervision of caseworker
services), maintenance and
operation of space and
property, data processing and
computer services, accounting,
budgeting, auditing and travel
expenses (other than those
r e l a t e d t o c a s e wo r k e r
provision of services or
oversight of programs funded
with Child Welfare Services)
[Sec. 5].

---

CRS-49
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Limits on
A state may spend a limited Same as current law.
Effective with FY2007, states Effective with FY2008, states
expenditures
amount of its Child Welfare
are generally prohibited from are generally prohibited from
for foster care Services funding for foster
spending program funds for spending program funds for
maintenance
care maintenance payments,
foster care maintenance foster care maintenance
payments,
adoption assistance payments
payments, adoption assistance payments, adoption assistance
adoption
and child day care (necessary
or child day care (for any or child day care (for any
assistance
solely for the employment or
purpose). However, any state purpose), unless the state can
payments and
training of the child’s
that can show HHS that it show that it spent some of its
child care
parent/related caretaker). The
spent Child Welfare Service FY2005 federal program
per state limit on Child
funds for these purposes in allotment for these purpose. If
Welfare Services expenditures
FY2005 may continue to a state can make this showing
for these purposes is the
spend the lesser of that then the amount of federal
amount of total federal funds
FY2005 spending amount or program money it spent for
allotted to the state for this
the state’s total FY1979 those purposes in FY2005 is
program in FY1979 (when the
funding allotment under the its limit for those purposes in
program was funded at $56.5
program [Sec. 5].
FY2008 and every future year
million) [Sec. 423].
[Sec. 6].
Counting state To receive its full federal Same as current law.
Effective with FY2007, deletes Effective with FY2008, states
matching
allotment of Child Welfare
the provision permitting states may not count foster care
funds
Services funds states must
t o c o u n t f o s t e r c a r e maintenance payments for
provide at lest 25% of the total
maintenance payments for purposes of providing state
program costs. To meet this
purposes of providing state matching funds under this
matching requirement, states
matching funds under this program unless a state can
may count their non-federal
program [Sec. 5].
show it did this in FY2005. If
spending for foster care
a state can make this showing,
maintenance payments in
then the amount of foster care
unlimited amount [Sec. 423].
m a i n t e n a n c e p a y m e n t
spending it counted as
matching funds in FY2005 is
its limit for that purpose in
FY2008 and every future year
[Sec. 6].
Planning
No provision.
No provision.
Requires the state to outline Requires the state to describe
consultation
how it will ensure that how it actively consults with
with medical
physicians or other appropriate and involves physicians or
professionals
medical professionals are other appropriate medical
actively consulted and professionals in assessing the
involved in assessing the health and well-being of

---

CRS-50
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
health and well-being of children in foster care and in
children in foster care and in determining appropriate
determining ap propriate medical treatment for them
medical treatment for them [Sec. 6].
[Sec. 5].
Procedures for No provision.
No provision.
No provision.
Requires a state, no later than
operation
12 months after enactment of
following a
the bill to have in place
disaster
procedures for how the states
f o s t e r c a r e , a d o p t i o n
assistance, independent living,
as well as its Child Welfare
Services and Promoting Safe
and Stable Families programs
will respond in a disaster. The
procedures must be in accord
with criteria established by
HHS and should include how
the state would —
1) identify, locate, and
continue availability of
services for children under
state care or supervision who
are affected by the disaster;
2) respond appropriately to
new child welfare cases
resulting from the disaster;
3) remain in communications
with caseworkers and other
essential child welfare
personnel who are displaced
by the disaster;
4) preserve essential program
records; and
5) coordinate services and
share information with other
states [Sec. 6].

---

CRS-51
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Procedures
Requires a state to assure that Same as current law.
Rewrites this provision to Same as House bill except
related to
as of October 31, 1995 it has
require a state to assure that it further specifies that the
abandoned
reviewed state policies and
has in place policies and policies and procedures must
children
administrative and judicial
administrative and judicial include those that provide for
procedures regarding children
procedures in place for legal representation of these
abandoned shortly after birth
children abandoned at or children [Sec. 6].
(including policies related to
shortly after birth which
legal representation of these
enable permanency decisions
children); and is implementing
to be made expeditiously for
policies and procedures
these children [Sec. 5].
determined (based on this
review) to enable permanency
decisions to be made
expeditiously for abandoned
children [Sec. 422
Inventory of
Since June 17, 1980 states are Same as current law.
Deletes this provision [Sec. 5]. Same as House bill [Sec. 6].
children in
required to have conducted a
foster care
statewide inventory of all
children in foster care for at
least 6 months to determine 1)
the appropriateness and
necessity for the foster care
placement; 2) whether the
children could or should be
turned over to their parents or
be freed for adoption or other
permanent placement and 3)
the services necessary to
facilitate the return of the child
or the placement of the child
for adoption or legal
guardianship [Sec. 422]

---

CRS-52
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Placement
A state must assure that it will Same as current law.
Clarifies that “some other Same as House bill [Sec. 6].
settings for a
operate a service program that
planned permanent living
child with
helps return foster children to
arrangement” may include a
permanency
their families (when it is safe
residential education program
goal of
and appropriate) or places
[Sec. 5].
another
them for adoption or in a legal
planned
guardianship. However, if
permanent
reunification, adoption or legal
living
guardianship is determined not
arrangement
to be appropriate, places them
in “some other planned
permanent living arrangement
“ [Sec. 422].
Child care
A state must assure that, Same as current law.
D e l e t e s t h i s s t a t e p l a n Same as House bill [Sec. 6].
standards
except for eligibility criteria, it
requirement [Sec. 5].
will impose the same standards
and requirements for child care
services funded with Child
Welfare Services as are
applied to those funded under
Title XX (Social Services
Block Grant) [Sec. 422].
Use of para-
A state must assure that it will Same as current law.
D e l e t e s t h i s s t a t e p l a n Same as House bill [Sec. 6].
professionals
provide for the training and
requirement [Sec. 5].
and volunteers effective use of paid para-
professionals and volunteers in
providing services and
a s s isting any ad vis o r y
committees established by the
state child welfare agency.

---

CRS-53
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Mentoring Children of Prisoners (Title IV-B, Subpart 2)
Program
Authorizes HHS to make E x t e n d s t h e c u r r e n t Same as Senate bill [Sec. 7].
Same as July 13 Senate bill
purpose and
competitive grants in each of authorization from FY2007-
[Sec. 8].
authorization
FY2002-FY2006 to support FY2011.
the establishment or expansion
and operation of programs that
provide mentoring services to
children of prisoners in areas
with substantial numbers of
children who have incarcerated
parents [Sec 439].
Expansion of
No provision.
Adds additional authority for No provision.
Adds additional authority for
program
HHS to enter into a
HHS to enter into a
purpose
cooperative agreement with a
cooperative agreement with a
n a t i o n a l m e n t o r i n g
qualified entity to conduct a
organization to develop
demonstration of use of
mentoring program standards,
vouchers as a way to deliver
publicize the availability of
mentoring services to children
mentoring services for children
of prisoners nationwide. The
of prisoners at programs that
entity must identify children in
meet these standards, and to
need of those services, provide
distribute vouchers for such
vouchers to the families of
services to the programs
these children, and monitor
selected by families of
and oversee the delivery of the
prisoners with children [Sec.
services. Vouchers may be
4].
good for one year of
mentoring services. A provider
of the services may only
redeem the voucher if it meets
the quality program standards
developed by the entity,
provides mentoring services to
the child and demonstrates that
it can continue (with non-
federal resources) providing
mentoring to the child after the
voucher expires. Contingent
on available funding, the entity

---

CRS-54
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
must agree to provide 3,000
vouchers in year one of the
demonstration project; 8,000
in year two and 13,000 in year
three . The project may then be
renewed for an additional 2
years if the entity performs
well and an independent
evaluation shows that vouchers
are an effective method of
service delivery for this service
[Sec. 8].
Funding
For each of FY2002-FY2003 For each of FY2007-FY2011 Maintains the annual “such Same as House bill [Sec. 8].
authorization authorized $67 million for authorizes $67 million [Sec. sums as may be necessary”
these grants; for FY2004 and 4].
funding authorization but
e v e r y y e a r t h e r e a f t e r
limits it to each of FY2007-
authorizes “such sums as may
FY2011 [Sec. 7].
be necessary” for the program.
No provision.
Up to 50% of these funds may No provision.
Provided that $25 million in
be used for the cooperative
program funds are made
a g r e e m e n t / v o u c h e r
available for the previously
distribution but no less than
authorized site based grants,
$25 million must remain
HHS may reserve up to $5
available for the previously
million of the appropriated
authorized site-based grants
funds for the voucher
[Sec. 4].
demonstration in the first year
funds are awarded for the
demonstration; $10 million for
the second year; and $15
million for the third fiscal year
[Sec. 8].
HHS must reserve 2.5% of the Same as current law.
HHS must reserve 4% of the
funds appropriated for the
funds appropriated for the
program for related research,
program for related research,
evaluation and technical
evaluation and technical
assistance [Sec. 439]
assistance [Sec. 8].

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CRS-55
Current Law
As passed by the
As passed by the
As passed by the Senate,
Senate, July 13
House, July 25
September 20
Court Improvement Program (Title IV-B, Subpart 2)
Program
For each of FY2002-FY2006 Extends both the court Same as Senate bill [Sec. 6].
Same as July 13 Senate bill
authorization
an eligible highest state court entitlement to these funds and
[Sec. 9].
(with an approved application) t h e r e l a t e d m a t c h i n g
is entitled to a share of funds, requirement through FY2011
which are set-aside from funds [Sec. 3].
provided for the PSSF
program, to assess and make
improvements to its handling
of child welfare related
proceedings. To receive is full
allotment of the funds in
FY2002-FY2006, the court
must provide at least 25% of
the total expenditures for this
purpose [Sec. 438].
Court Consultation with Foster Child/Youth at Permanency Review Proceedings (Title IV-E)
Case review
States are required to have in Provides that a court or Same as current law.
Same as July 13 Senate bill
system
place a case review system for administrative body that is
except that the reference to age
each child in foster care. This holding a permanency hearing
of the child for whom
system is defined to include an must consult, in an age-
transition to independent living
annual permanency hearing appropriate manner, with the
planning is being made is
(conducted by a court or court- child or youth whose
deleted [Sec. 10].
a p p o i n t e d / a p p r o v e d permanency plan/arrangement
administrative body) to review is under review (including
the permanency plan for the youth who are age 16 or older
child. In the case of a youth in and are in transition to
foster care who is age 16 or independent living. [Sec. 7].
older the annual permanency
hearing must determine the
services the youth needs to
make the transition from foster
care to independent living.
[Sec. 475]
w
g
p
h
p
s
cr
Source: table prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

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