Opportunity Information: Apply for HHS 2018 ACF ACYF CO 1360

The Strengthening Child Welfare Systems to Achieve Expected Child and Family Outcomes opportunity is a discretionary funding program from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children s Bureau. It is designed to help child welfare systems move children in foster care to safe, permanent families more quickly, with a specific emphasis on improving adoption-related permanency outcomes while also strengthening safety and well-being. The program recognizes that while many children can reunify with their parents, others will need permanency through kinship care, guardianship, or adoption, and that state and local systems often struggle to achieve timely, stable permanency according to federal Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs).

The core problem the grant targets is the set of persistent practice and system gaps that show up in CFSR findings and contribute to delays in permanency. These issues include weak or inconsistent efforts to pursue timely adoption when appropriate, poor preservation of family connections, and limited meaningful engagement of parents, children, and youth in case planning. The description also points to service delivery problems, such as services that are not robust enough to support permanency goals, and to visitation challenges, including visits that are too infrequent or too short, or that are used punitively rather than as a tool to maintain and strengthen relationships. It further highlights structural and legal barriers such as delays in setting adoption as the goal, lack of real concurrent planning (working reunification and an alternative permanency plan at the same time), and lengthy appeals in contested termination of parental rights cases. The opportunity frames these barriers as not just administrative problems, but as issues rooted in basic social work practice, legal representation quality, and court and judicial processes, all of which shape permanency, safety, and well-being outcomes for children in care.

Funding is provided through cooperative agreements, meaning the federal agency expects substantial involvement beyond a typical grant, including support and coordination that can include technical assistance. The program plans to make up to five awards, each lasting five years, with an award ceiling of $1,610,000. The overall purpose is to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies that improve adoption outcomes by strengthening foundational child welfare practice and removing systemic barriers that keep children from reaching permanency in a timely way. Because permanency cannot be separated from safety and well-being, the grant expects funded reform efforts to also address safety and well-being outcomes as part of an integrated approach, rather than treating adoption speed alone as the only measure of success.

Applicants are expected to ground their proposed reforms in the evidence of what is not working within their own systems, using specific planning and oversight documents. These include CFSR findings, Program Improvement Plans (PIPs), Child and Family Services Plans, Title IV-E Foster Care Eligibility Review results, Annual Progress and Services Reports, and Court Improvement Program (CIP) Plans and CIP Self-Assessments. The intent is that applicants use these sources to identify local barriers, name the practical and procedural challenges behind them, and propose targeted solutions. The grant highlights key areas where solutions should lead to measurable improvement: supporting placements in kinship, preadoptive, or adoptive homes; strengthening permanency planning and achievement; ensuring child safety; improving engagement and service delivery to children and families (explicitly including fathers); and improving case planning and the maintenance of family relationships and connections.

The strategies funded under this initiative are expected to focus on improving everyday practice and system functioning, not just creating new programs that sit alongside existing processes. That includes reforms that promote family-focused approaches, more meaningful engagement with parents and youth, higher-quality legal representation, and improvements tied to CFSR systemic factors. A major emphasis is collaboration with the courts, reflecting the reality that permanency timelines and decisions depend heavily on legal and judicial practice. Applicants must partner with their Administrative Office of the Courts, the Court Improvement Program, local courts, and other relevant systems involved in child welfare initiatives at the state or county level, and they must show clear buy-in from the appropriate leadership to demonstrate that the proposed changes can be implemented and sustained.

In short, this opportunity funds long-term, statewide or local system improvement projects that are tightly connected to documented performance gaps and that bring child welfare agencies and courts to the same table. The goal is to reduce time to permanency and strengthen adoption outcomes while simultaneously improving safety and well-being, using tested oversight data to guide reform, and evaluating the strategies so successful approaches can be sustained and replicated.

  • The Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families - ACYF/CB in the income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Strengthening Child Welfare Systems to Achieve Expected Child and Family Outcomes" and is now available to receive applicants.
  • Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.652.
  • This funding opportunity was created on May 04, 2018.
  • Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 18, 2018 Electronically submitted applications must be submitted no later than 1159 p.m., ET, on the listed application due date.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
  • Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,610,000.00 in funding.
  • The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
  • Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).
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