Sponsors (3)
The bill aims to improve permanency, family-based placements, equity, and data-driven oversight for foster children and families, but it requires new reporting, staffing, and protections that may impose costs, privacy risks, and short-term burdens—especially for smaller or under-resourced jurisdictions.
Children in foster care will have higher chances of timely permanency and placement stability because States must use child-specific recruitment plans and set goals to reduce congregate care.
Relatives and kin (and the children they could care for) are more likely to be identified, engaged, and used as placement resources, increasing family-based placements over institutional care.
State governments and agencies will get annual, State-by-State data on foster/adoptive family capacity and congregate care use that can identify gaps and target improvements to recruitment, matching, and services.
State governments (and ultimately taxpayers) will incur new administrative and reporting costs to collect annual data, run recruitment programs, and survey families, which may require new funding.
Smaller or under-resourced States and local jurisdictions may struggle to comply without new legislation, staffing, or resources, delaying benefits for children and diverting staff time from direct services.
Foster and adoptive families and children may face privacy risks because collecting and reporting detailed demographic and sensitive survey data could expose identifying information if protections are insufficient.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Introduced January 21, 2025 by Randy Feenstra · Last progress March 5, 2025
Requires State child welfare plans to adopt data-driven "family partnership plans" that guide how states recruit, engage, and support foster and adoptive families. It directs States to consult with families, youth with lived experience, community providers, and others when developing plans, and to collect and report annual data on foster family capacity, congregate care use, and barriers to recruitment and retention. Adds a new yearly federal reporting requirement so HHS must publish State-by-State data and summaries (including parent and youth survey findings) about foster and adoptive family numbers, characteristics, utilization gaps, reasons families are not used, and challenges to recruitment—starting in fiscal year 2025. Most provisions take effect Oct 1, 2026, with a delayed compliance timeline for States that need to pass new State laws to meet the requirements.