Family First Prevention Services Act of 2017

H.R. 253: Family First Prevention Services Act of 2017 is the second addition of H.R. 5456: Family First Prevention Services Act of 2016, which was passed by the House on June 21, 2016 but was never passed by the Senate.

The resolution's purpose is "To amend parts B and E of title IV of the Social Security Act to invest in funding prevention and family services to help keep children safe and supported at home, to ensure that children in foster care are placed in the least restrictive, most family-like, and appropriate settings, and for other purposes."

Our interpretation of this bill is that the best way to help foster children, is to ensure they never become foster children at all - by helping their biological families with all of their needs, from financial assistance to providing food and clothing and other needed items, to providing counseling, parenting classes, employment services, and providing any other support services that may be needed. We couldn't agree more. So many foster children are only in care because their parents lacked parenting skills, the skills to cook healthy meals, the skills to properly care for their homes, or the skills to get and keep a job. And many of our nation's biological parents were themselves foster children, and have the addition of unresolved trauma to try to get past.