ACF Amendment Helps Child Welfare Agencies Offer Families Legal Protections
In the perfect world, ensuring a child’s safety shouldn’t have to be a struggle. But sometimes, certain critical measures are needed, and now, the steps to offer these measures are a little easier. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the Department of Health and Human Services last week amended its regulation at 45 C.F.R. 1356 to expand access to legal representation for children who are eligible for title IV-E foster care, their parents, kinship caregivers, Indian custodians and tribes by allowing state and tribal child welfare agencies to use federal funds to provide legal representation.
The federal funds will help cover the costs of providing access to an attorney during civil legal proceedings when doing so would support a child’s needs. Child welfare agency often work with families that are in the midst of, or recovering from, familial, health, housing or economic challenges. Providing independent legal representation to parents and caregivers in civil legal proceedings can prevent children from entering foster care and may improve the rate of reunification when children have been removed from a home.
“The foster care system should always be a last resort, and at ACF, we are focused on prevention and getting families the supports they need to thrive,” said ACF Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeff Hild. “This rule will ensure more families, young people and tribes have access to legal services that are often key to a family staying safely together.” The rule also allows federal funds to pay for the representation of tribes when they participate or intervene in state court foster care proceedings for Indian children.
For example, under the new rule, a child welfare agency could provide a family at risk of entering the foster care system with legal representation to help to secure stable housing, secure public benefits, or establish custody or guardianship to prevent the unnecessary removal of a child from the home. For Indian children placed in foster care, federal funds can pay for tribes’ attorneys or representatives to provide the court with critical information about the child’s tribe.
A child welfare agency also could use federal funds to pay for legal representation for a parent to obtain an order of protection against an abuser when doing so would help the parent prevent a child from entering foster care. ACF also seeks to allow a child welfare agency to use federal funds to provide legal representation to a youth exiting foster care to help them access legal documents that will help them achieve independence and stability.
The rule becomes effective July 9. Hopefully, this amendment to ACF regulations will offer more children and families the assistance they need.
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