US House Rep Karen Bass's office released the following:
April 14, 2020
Press Release
WASHINGTON
- Today, Reps. Karen Bass (D-CA), Kim Schrier (D-WA) and Don Young
(R-AK) sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Leader Kevin
McCarthy encouraging them to address the increased need to support
families during the COVID-19 response in ways that prevent child abuse
and neglect. The letter also asks for increased funding to support older
foster youth who are struggling for personal and financial security
while the entire world is in a economic crisis.
Finally, the letter asks
for systems support so child welfare practice can adapt to social
distancing and keep social workers online during the pandemic.
Read the full letter here or below.
April 14, 2020
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Kevin McCarthy
Minority Leader
U.S. House of Representatives
Dear Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy:
We urge you to include in the next federal COVID response direct
funding to prevent, intervene, and treat child abuse and neglect; and to
support the foster care system, relative caregivers, and older youth
with child welfare experiences. The extraordinary economic, social, and
health impacts of the pandemic has created a heightened risk of child
abuse and neglect and massive disruptions to the child welfare system.
The child welfare system is not designed to function remotely. The work
of preventing and responding to child maltreatment is interpersonal at
its core and the pandemic has utterly disrupted this vital work.
Prior to the pandemic, the child abuse prevention and child welfare
systems were already struggling under the weight of the opioid crisis,
which drove extraordinary numbers of children into the system. Just as
the opioid crisis showed signs of improvement, the COVID-19 pandemic
hit, leaving under resourced state and tribal child welfare systems to
navigate overlapping public health crises.
Research is clear that increased family stress heightens the risk
of child abuse. The risk of child abuse is greater during the COVID
response because many children and families are sequestered at home and
experiencing extraordinary levels of uncertainty, economic stress, and
health concerns. It is even more difficult to identify when children are
harmed because schools are closed, routine medical visits are on hold,
and children are not out in the community. For these reasons, there is
no contact with mandatory reporters of abuse and neglect. Under the
COVID response conditions child abuse prevention is even more important,
and more families need help. Calls to family helplines have skyrocketed
and have long wait times. Service delivery must be adapted for social
distancing. Child welfare prevention systems and services require
emergency funding to continue operating and expand to meet the rising
need.
Child welfare systems have been disrupted by the pandemic; severely
impeding social workers’ abilities to support families, investigate and
intervene in child abuse cases, and ensure the wellbeing of children in
foster care. Caseworkers are operating in unsafe conditions that
threaten their health, as well as the health of the families and
communities they serve. Courts across the country, which provide
critical oversight and accountability have either closed or have
significantly delayed family court hearings and decisions on children’s
placements.
Our nation’s foster families also desperately need our help during
the COVID response. Like all families, fostering families are
experiencing significant changes to their economic stability. They also
have limited access to therapies that help children cope with trauma,
and practical support from child welfare agency staff. Fostering
families have the additional difficulty of managing visits with
biological parents that foster healthy attachments and bonding. Child
welfare systems are the only resource available to meet the needs of
fostering families.
During the COVID response the existing gaps in federal child
welfare – like supports for older foster youth, kinship families and
tribal child welfare- are exacerbated. Foster youth are fighting to gain
independence without the safety net of trusted family. Relative
caregivers need assistance navigating new needs and resources during the
pandemic. And as tribes face slower and longer pandemic curves, tribal
child welfare systems are critically underfunded and overburdened by
administrative red tape.
Our nation has existing federal programs with infrastructure and
expertise to address these challenges. They need additional funding and
temporary flexibility. We urge you to provide emergency funding for the
following programs:
- Increase funding by $1 billion for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP) Grants. Funding would be used by states and local organizations to meet the need for child abuse prevention programs and adapt services to account for social distancing. Funds could be used to establish satellite locations and mobile units for service delivery, hire more parent educators, home visitors, and parent coaches, create public awareness campaigns, develop and distribute parenting tip sheets, and hire staff to expand the reach of state help lines
- Increase funding by $20 million for Kinship Navigator Programs. Increased funding would help respond to the skyrocketing demand for information and connections to resources among families where grandparents and other relatives are raising children. It is particularly important to provide supplies, information, and assistance for these families where caregivers are at high risk of death or severe illness if exposed to the virus.
- Increase funding by $1 billion for Title IV-B Part 2. This funding
would help child welfare agencies provide the services necessary to
stabilize families and prevent a major influx of children into the
foster care system. These funds can be used to keep children safely at
home with interventions tailored to meet families’ needs, help support
family reunification, provide support services to adoptive families and
to retain foster families.
- Increase the share of IV-B Part 2 funds reserved to support tribes. Increase the funding to tribes for providing child and family services from close to three percent of the current mandatory Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) funding level to 4.5 percent of the full mandatory PSSF funding.
- Eliminate the $10,000 minimum threshold for grant eligibility. Instead, replace the threshold with a $10,000 minimum funding requirement.
- Increase funding by $500 million for CAPTA Title I. These flexible funds would help ensure child welfare agencies’ response, investigations, and interventions of child abuse and neglect are not dangerously upended. Funds could be spent on PPE, technological platforms, other measures to facilitate safe home visits, worker support, CASA volunteers, national helpline, and establishing new supports and services within the community.
- Increase funding by $30 million for the Court Improvement Program.
These funds will be used directly to mitigate the impact of the pandemic
on the functioning of child welfare court cases. Funding would help
address court shutdowns, reduced staffing, technological challenges and
other issues that are compromising child safety and delaying family
reunification and other critical support to child victims and their
families.
- Increase funding by $1 million for the Tribal Court Improvement Program. The tribal match requirement should also be eliminated.
- Increase FMAP for Title IV-E Prevention Program. If we don’t commensurately increase the federal funding rate for IV-E prevention, it will incentivize unnecessary foster care placements at a time when disrupting families brings additional dangers and undo the progress Congress has made in recent years toward preventive care.
- Increase funding to Title IV-E Chafee funds by $500 million. This funding will allow states to support young people in the transition from foster care to adulthood. States could ensure a flexible, rapid response to the emerging needs of transition-age youth and Chafee-eligible former foster youth, including financial assistance, housing, and employment services.
Furthermore, increases to the Social Services Block Grant
(SSBG) are needed to help states fill in gaps to critical services
including child protective services, child abuse prevention supports,
domestic violence services, and foster care. Additional SSBG investments
should include a set-aside for Tribes.
Thank you for your consideration of this request. We look forward
to partnering with you to ensure that the most vulnerable children and
families are not forgotten in the federal response to this pandemic.
Sincerely,
(Ensigned Members of Congress)
Issues:
