Resource Library

On November 22nd, 2024 the Children's Bureau released a Dear Colleague Letter pertaining to the recent guidance issued by the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services that emphasized the importance of the new CMS guidance, specifically for child welfare leaders seeking to address health care needs, both as a strategy for preventing entry into the child welfare system, as well as for addressing the needs of children and youth in foster care.

This Information Memorandum (IM) notifies child welfare agencies about the release of updated nonregulatory guidance: Nonregulatory Guidance: Ensuring Educational Stability and Success for Students in Foster Care.

This Program Instruction (PI) provides State, Territorial, and Tribal title IV-E agencies (hereafter, "title IV-E agencies") with the renewed and revised form and instructions approved by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for reporting quarterly financial information on the title IV-E Foster Care, Adoption Assistance, Guardianship Assistance, Kinship Navigator and Prevention Services Programs, as well as annual reporting data for Adoption Savings.

The Children’s Bureau posts an annual FY summary of Form CB-496 expenditures and caseloads as reported by each title IV-E agency. These data tables include the combination of current-quarter and prior-quarter adjustment expenditures and current-quarter caseload data as delineated in quarterly Form CB-496 submissions for FY 2023.

The purpose of this Information Memorandum (IM) is to inform title IV-B and title IV-E agencies that the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) published a final rule for Foster Care Legal Representation on May 10, 2024 (89 FR 34818). The final rule allows title IV-E agencies to claim FFP for administrative costs of legal and certain non-legal representation.

The report and data visualization below present national estimates related to children who experience time in foster care and who are adopted from the foster care system, relative to each Federal Fiscal Year shown.

This report provides preliminary estimates of Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) data for FY 2022. As states are permitted to resubmit AFCARS data, the estimates may change over time. This report reflects all AFCARS data received as of May 9, 2023 related to AFCARS reporting periods through September 30, 2022.

This Program Instruction provides instructions for title IV-E agencies that opt to adopt licensing or approval standards for relative or kinship foster family homes that differ from the standards used for non-relative foster family homes.  It also provides instructions for title IV-E agencies to implement the requirement that a licensed or approved relative or kinship foster family home receives the same amount of foster care maintenance payment (FCMP) that would have been made if the child was placed in a non-related/non-kinship foster family home.

This document is a compilation of the sections of the Social Security Act related to various child welfare programs, including titles IV-B and IV-E.