Create Accountable Respectful Environments (CARE) for Children Act

This bill lets states place foster children in “cottage family homes,” which are small, family-style homes with live‑in parents. It aims to ease the shortage of foster homes, help keep siblings together, and add checks to protect children’s safety and well‑being. Children placed in these homes can receive foster care maintenance payments, and this setting is not subject to a time limit on those payments .

A cottage family home must meet clear standards: encourage regular contact with the child’s family, help place siblings together, provide age‑appropriate activities, use trauma‑informed care, and ban seclusion and mechanical or chemical restraints. Only short‑term physical restraint to prevent injury is allowed, and prone restraint is banned. Kids must have a way to report concerns, and programs must regularly gather feedback from children. Homes are single‑family style with no more than two children per bedroom unless it’s in the children’s best interest, and they have live‑in parents who provide 24/7 care using a “reasonable and prudent parent” approach. States have flexibility to treat these homes like foster family homes. The changes take effect at enactment, with up to six months’ extra time for states that need to pass their own laws to comply .

• Who is affected: Children in foster care, sibling groups, foster parents in cottage family homes, and state child welfare agencies .
• What changes: Allows and funds cottage family homes; sets safety and quality rules (family contact, siblings together, trauma‑informed care, restraint bans, child feedback, bedroom limits, live‑in parents).
• When: Effective at enactment; states may take up to six months if they need new state laws to meet the requirements.