Foster Care in the News
HHS has expanded its "A Home for Every Child" initiative to include all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The program cuts federal reporting paperwork so child welfare workers can focus on recruiting and retaining foster families, aiming to improve the current national ratio of 57 approved foster homes for every 100 children. States report progress monthly, and $7 million in awards will go to those with the best-improved ratios
First Lady Melania Trump noted on X that only 23 governors have pledged to create "Fostering the Future" accounts, her initiative helping foster youth save and invest toward financial independence. The accounts are a foster-care extension of the federal "Trump Accounts" savings program, and the 23 governors who signed on so far are all Republicans.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that Operation Statewide Shield, the state's first statewide child-recovery initiative and the largest of its kind in Florida history, recovered 163 missing children, ages 2 months to 17 years, across five continents. During the five-day August operation, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement worked with federal and foreign agencies, along with 13 sheriff's offices and child welfare partners, to locate children in eight U.S. states and territories and twelve foreign countries. Some of the children were runaways; others had been abandoned, abused, or trafficked. Three men have been arrested so far, with more arrests expected, and recovered children received medical care and social services support.
Georgia's governor's race is drawing rare attention to the state's foster care system, which serves about 11,000 children amid an $85.7 million budget shortfall and a 40% decline in licensed foster homes since 2019. Republican nominee Rick Jackson, a former foster child, and Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, an adoptive parent, both cite personal ties to child welfare reform.
An insurance crisis is threatening California's foster care system. Since 2024, more than two dozen foster family agencies, which are nonprofits that recruit, train, and support foster parents, have closed across 13 counties. The crisis began when the state's dominant insurer stopped covering the agencies amid rising legal costs from sexual abuse lawsuits, leaving remaining agencies facing premium increases of 200–400%. A one-time $31.5 million state allocation has run out, and advocates warn the entire system could collapse, putting medically fragile children especially at risk.
South Carolina has become the latest state to stop diverting foster children's Social Security survivor benefits to cover state care costs, restoring roughly $1.6 million to 301 children under Governor Henry McMaster's announcement. The move joins a fast-growing national trend: as of July 2026, 30 states had ended or substantially reformed the practice, with Newsweek's August count putting the total at 34 states plus D.C. Nebraska was the first to act, via a January executive order from Governor Jim Pillen, followed by Michigan's legislature. The reform coincides with ACF's $7 million "A Home for Every Child Innovation Challenge," launched in May to reward states improving foster care outcomes.
Washington has ended its practice of intercepting federal disability and survivor benefits from young adults in extended foster care to reimburse the state for their care. Under bipartisan Senate Bill 5911, foster youth ages 18–21 will keep these payments, which will be deposited into tax-free ABLE savings accounts starting next year. The change costs the state roughly $11.7 million over two years, and advocates note over 600 younger foster children's benefits are still being taken.
Federal and local authorities arrested nine people in a July 1 sweep targeting sex trafficking along South Los Angeles' Figueroa Corridor, including six members and associates of the Hoover Criminal Gang and a motel manager. A 65-count indictment alleges the gang controlled trafficking in the corridor from 2021 to 2026, listing 51 victims, some as young as 14. It was the second major federal operation on the corridor; the LAPD found 70 underage girls working the area this year alone.
Note: Photo credit New York Times.
