Sioux City Times

Today, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Hull) voted for, and the U.S. House of Representatives passed, the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act, which would reauthorize Title IV-B of the Social Security Act for the first time since 2021. Title IV-B provides federal resources to states to support children in foster care and keep families together.

This legislation also includes a Feenstra-sponsored bill – the Strengthening Evidence-Based Prevention Services Act – to help keep vulnerable children out of the foster care system by funding comprehensive evaluations of prevention services so that these programs can be certified and deployed in communities.

“As a husband and father of four, I am passionate about advancing policies that support our children and help our families thrive because strong families make for strong communities,” said Rep. Feenstra. “I’m glad that my bill to help keep families together and children out of the foster care system was included in a larger legislative initiative to reauthorize federal programs vital to the wellbeing of our kids and our families. These are important investments to ensure that parents have the necessary resources to provide for their families and that vulnerable children have access to the tools that they deserve to lead happy, fulfilling lives.”

Prevention services are programs that aim to prevent children from entering foster care. In 2018, Congress passed the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), federal legislation that aids states in implementing evidence-based programs that help keep families intact and reduce the number of children entering foster care system. One major barrier to the law’s success, however, is the lack of available research funding to support the development of qualifying evidence-based services. Because of this “research gap,” many prevention services don’t receive the federal assistance that was intended in the FFPSA.

More specifically, this bill would authorize a grant program through the Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services to fund evaluations of prevention services, enabling them to have supporting evidence that could establish a rating of “promising,” “supported,” or “well-supported” and receive federal funding. This program is designed to bridge the “evidence gap” currently preventing foster care prevention services from receiving funding. This funding is intended to be supplemental to existing funding for child welfare.

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