During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing Wednesday, Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA) spoke about a grant that would focus on preventing families from 'splintering' in order to decrease the rate of children entering foster care.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I thank you, Ms. Hilton, for coming forward and telling your story, writing a book on
00:13your memoir.
00:14And Mrs. Peterson, thank you, that's a bold step.
00:18We're all created in God's image and we're all children of God.
00:21We always have to remember that, so thank you.
00:24In 2018, Congress passed the Family First Prevention Services Act, and one of the largest
00:30child welfare reforms in state history.
00:33The bill represented a shift in how we approach child welfare, recognizing that children do
00:37best when they grow up in a family and in their communities.
00:42That's so big.
00:44We started to focus more on helping strengthen families by responding to the root causes
00:48that were splintering them apart and leaving children in the foster care program.
00:53The goal of prevention is to help families stay together, and the importance of this
00:57has only grown as the foster care program seems to increasingly get strained because
01:01of maximum capacity.
01:03Mr. Green, you highlighted the successes of the progress of the Family First Prevention
01:09Services Act in your opening statement.
01:11However, there are still barriers in the full implementation.
01:15It's crucial to have a wide variety of evidence-based programs available in the clearinghouse.
01:21Representative Kildee and I introduced the Strengthening Evidence-Based Prevention Services
01:24Act to establish a new competitive grant program aimed at supporting prevention programs through
01:30research and evaluations, which are required to receive federal support.
01:36My question is this, Mr. Green.
01:38Do you believe that there is a need for a more diverse array of programs in this clearinghouse?
01:44As a recovering researcher, I certainly support evidence-based policy and evidence-based funding
01:51decisions.
01:52At the same time, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that states need a broader array
01:57of programs to invest in.
02:00What we don't want to happen, and what I fear could happen, is a state looks at the clearinghouse
02:06and says, this is what is well-supported, so this is what we're going to pay for and
02:11invest in, without an understanding of whether these programs actually meet the needs of
02:17children and families in their community.
02:19And so, there is absolutely a need to expand the variety of the programs so that each state
02:27and community and tribe can look at their own circumstances and find out what works
02:31for them.
02:32And what barriers, so I agree, you and I agree on this, but so what are the barriers?
02:37Why aren't we doing this?
02:39So I think there are a number of things.
02:40One, it gets down to the way the legislation was written and the words that we use for
02:45promising practice, well-supported and supported.
02:50There was a period of time when Congress had a temporary authorization to allow states
02:55to get reimbursement if 50% of their programs were either supported or well-supported.
03:00Now we're back to what the traditional legislation says, which is it has to be 50% of well-supported.
03:07This is why I worry about states just looking at those well-supported programs without the
03:11knowledge of what do they actually need in their community.
03:16So exactly right.
03:18So we have 50 states.
03:21How do we manage this, partnering then with the states and their programs?
03:28So I will say there is progress being made, which is good.
03:31We are seeing states investing more in prevention through 4E.
03:37There are growing numbers of programs being approved by the Clearinghouse.
03:42I do think reauthorization of 4B plays an important role here.
03:47States can use 4B to test a program that's not yet approved on the Clearinghouse.
03:52They can test it.
03:53They can say, yeah, this meets our needs.
03:56And then hopefully it will get through the approval process.
03:59I do think that approval process needs to be sped up.
04:02Thank you.
04:03Thank you so much for that.
04:04I just got a question after Congressman Kildee noted.
04:09So if you had to look back and you were in 12 homes or something like that, what was
04:16the root cause of these families and changing homes and all this stuff?
04:24I mean, do you have any solutions to say, all right, we don't want this for other children?
04:27What happened to you?
04:28Yes.
04:29My time in care, the second time I went into care, I was in care as a teenager.
04:34And we know that teenagers, it is hard to find placements for them more so than it is
04:39young children.
04:42Teenagers in foster care are stigmatized and viewed very unfairly.
04:45I was a 4.0 student.
04:46I was a good athlete.
04:49And it was hard for me to find placement.
04:50And it was hard for me to retain placement because people, foster parents want to adopt
04:55little children.
04:56And so little children would come into the home, and then I would be moved to the next
05:00home.
05:01And so there's a lot of rules in the foster care system revolving youth in foster care.
05:07And the Normalcy Act passed, which I mentioned earlier, after I had emancipated.
05:12But a lot of those rules, I didn't follow.
05:15And I would be kicked out of homes.
05:16Those rules were rules that my peers did not follow because they weren't putting me in
05:20danger.
05:21They were just, I wanted to have a normal experience as a teenager, as any teenager
05:27would.
05:28And so I was either usually moved out because the family was establishing their family through
05:33adoption or because of rules that I didn't follow.
05:37Thank you.
05:38Thank you for that.
05:39We need solutions.
05:40And I yield back.
05:41Mr. Carey.
05:42I want to thank the chair and as a point of personal