WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
joined Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) in urging the
Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and
Families (ACF) to speed up their implementation timeline for new reporting
requirements that cover at-risk children in foster care.
“Children in the foster care system
remain some of the most vulnerable to Adverse Childhood Experiences such as
neglect and abuse as well as human trafficking and other forms of exploitation,
and youth who runaway are at unique risk. By expediting the implementation of
the new AFCARS data and therefore the collation and distribution of data,
lawmakers and child welfare providers will be able to respond to and care for
foster youth,” the lawmakers wrote.
The new guidelines require the ACF to
report all placement settings a child has experienced during their time in
foster care, including children designated as “runaway” and a new designation
for “whereabouts unknown,” to better capture the range of placement settings.
Doing so will help better determine how common runaway and missing foster youth
are.
“We are glad to see this change in data
collection of foster youth experiences, and we strongly suggest you accelerate
the update as quickly as you can to the extent possible and relay the new data
to Congress once the system is up and running. Our children are our future, our
shared interest, and we have an obligation to provide them the best chance
possible to exact their full potential,” the
lawmakers concluded.
Read the full letter by clicking
HERE.
Last week, Grassley, Cornyn and Stabenow
introduced the Find and Protect Foster
Youth Act, which would create a feedback loop between states and the ACF to
provide better care and information-sharing for missing and runaway foster
youth. Read more about their legislation by clicking
HERE.
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