A selection of The Imprint’s most impactful stories from the past year
The first six months of Trump’s second term included a whirlwind of unconventional actions like grant cancellations and massive layoffs at the Administration for Children and Families.
More recently, an image of the administration’s vision for child welfare policy has come into view. Trump’s choice to lead the agency, Alex Adams, has identified “A Home for Every Child” as the unifying goal for the next three years, a push to get a 1:1 ratio of foster homes to children in foster care. It’s a goal, he pointed out in a lengthy interview with The Imprint, that can be accomplished through a combination of recruiting more homes and lowering the number of youth who need foster care.
Meanwhile, the president and First Lady Melania Trump held a White House event to issue, Fostering the Future, an executive order calling for several foster care-related actions by his administration. Among its priorities: Improving the quality of data and technology used by child welfare systems, more support for older youth aging out into adulthood, and increased reliance on the faith-based community.
On the same day the executive order was issued, the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute published “Reclaiming Foster Care,” a provocative paper outlining dramatic reforms of the child welfare system that envisions a larger role for community entities in child safety, stronger legal protections for parents and restructuring of federal funding.
Other early priorities for the administration include compelling some states to change their policies on gender affirmation by caregivers and social security benefits for youth in foster care.
For more coverage like this, visit our White House Watch page.
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