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This NPRM would permit ACF to streamline the assessment and reporting scheme in the Children’s Bureau.

Statement of Need:

This NPRM proposes to simplify and restructure the overly bureaucratic array of reporting and monitoring systems that evaluate a state’s compliance with federal child welfare requirements. This includes both the five-year Child and Family Services Plan (CFSP), the Annual Progress and Services Report (APSR), and the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR). The CFSR is a periodic review of a state’s child welfare system, which no state has achieved substantial conformity under after three complete rounds of review of every state. As such, every state is on a Program Improvement Plan (PIP) to take corrective action to improve the CFSR’s findings. 

Unfortunately, the PIPs have also been ineffective, with states producing worse results in each subsequent round of the CFSR. It is clear that the web of reviews and reporting associated with state child welfare monitoring is overly restrictive and prescriptive. This rulemaking seeks to address this issue and reform the compliance reviews from a check-the-box process to an outcomes-based approach directed towards a tailored goal of ensuring a safe, loving home for every American child.

Summary of the Legal Basis:

TBD

Alternatives:

ACF has considered alternatives, including issuance of sub-regulatory guidance, but has determined that regulatory action is necessary to reduce burden on states who are responsible for complying with the current bureaucratic patchwork of reporting and assessments.  Sub-regulatory action alone is insufficient to overcome the needlessly prescriptive mandates and requirements included in existing regulations.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits:

ACF has calculated that the cost of administering the CFSR is roughly $600,000 per state, per round. A rewritten reporting and review process seeks to not only save administrative expenses, but will also allow states and ACF to spend time seeking to improve child welfare as opposed to following a failed bureaucratic process. This proposed rulemaking is set to save considerable administrative costs for both the states and ACF.

Risks:

Risks are minimal. ACF expects this NPRM will be well-received by the community as few individuals see much of a benefit in the CFSR process, which since the turn of the century has identified zero states in substantial compliance. While with any changes in reporting requirements, there could be some initial hesitation, it is expected that stakeholders would be excited for compliance reporting to strengthen a component of child welfare, rather than waste hundreds of thousands of dollars per review which will lead to a pre-determined failure.