LegiStorm

Summary:

The Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 was enacted on September 25, 2006 (P.L. 109-288). As enacted it extends the funding authorization of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) program for five years (FY2007-FY2011) and annually targets 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 their parent/caretaker's abuse of methamphetamine or another substance. As under prior law, states must spend the majority of PSSF funds on four broad categories of child and family services: community-based family support, family preservation, time-limited reunification and adoption promotion and support. P.L. 109-288 requires states to report on their actual—as opposed to simply planned—use of PSSF (and Child Welfare Services) funds. It also increases the PSSF set-aside for tribal child and family services, and allows access to these funds for more tribes. (Appendix A of this report compares selected enacted provisions with prior law as well as provision in earlier versions of the reauthorization legislation.) Separately, P.L. 109-288 amended the Child Welfare Services program (Title IV-B, Subpart 1 of the Social Security Act), re-organizing its provisions and limiting its funding authorization to FY2007-FY2011. Beginning with FY2008, the new law limits the use of Child Welfare Service funds for administrative purposes to no more than 10%, and prohibits 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 requires states to—1) develop procedures to respond to and maintain services in the wake of a disaster; 2) describe in their state plans how they consult with medical professionals to assess the health of and provide appropriate medical treatment to children in foster care; and 3) establish a standard of no less than monthly caseworker visits of children in foster care along with standards for the content of the visit. The new law provides that in any state where less than 90% of children in foster care are visited on a monthly basis—or where the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) determines that the state is not making enough progress to meet that standard by October 1, 2011—the state will need to supply a greater amount of non-federal funds in order to access its full federal Child Welfare Services allotment. P.L. 109-288 also extends authorization for five years (FY2007-FY2011) of Mentoring Children of Prisoners, and includes authority for a project to demonstrate the effectiveness of vouchers as a method of delivering these services. Further, it extends for five years (FY2007-FY2011) certain grants under the Court Improvement Program. This report tracked successful legislative efforts to reauthorize these programs in the 109th Congress. It describes provisions enacted by P.L. 109-288 and provides information on PSSF funding. Further it contains an appendix showing (in table form) selected provisions in prior law compared to those proposed and enacted, and additional appendices that provide a legislative history of the PSSF program, discuss selected program policy issues and offer an overview of federal programs providing funding for purposes related to the PSSF program. It will not be updated.