Promoting Permanency Through Kinship Families Act
The Promoting Permanency Through Kinship Families Act aims to shift the foster care system toward stronger reliance on kinship arrangements—such as kinship guardianships, foster placements with relatives, or fictive kin—when children cannot safely stay with their own parents. It broadens the role of kin in planning and case reviews, tightens or reframes certain State plan requirements to prioritize relative placement, and creates new supports and protections for kin caregivers. The bill also expands funding and program requirements to support kinship placements, including a new kinship placement support services program, stronger background-check rules designed to avoid automatically blocking kin placements, and a prohibition on age-based disqualification for kinship caregivers. Overall, it seeks to reduce barriers, promote permanency with family connections, and invest in services to keep kinship households stable and safe. Key changes include mandatory state planning that actively involves relatives, a shift from “consider” to “actively identify and locate” relatives for potential placement, expanded permanency pathways (with safeguards for when placements aren’t in a child’s best interest), removal of certain eligibility hurdles for foster care payments, and new or expanded supports for kin caregivers. The act also adds required kinship placement services, strengthens tribal protections where relevant, and sets fiscal timing and reporting rules for states to maintain kinship-related expenditures.
Key Points
- 1Expanded emphasis on kinship placements in state child welfare planning and case planning, requiring substantiation of addressing disparities and ensuring relatives/fictive kin are regularly involved.
- 2Strengthened efforts to identify and locate relatives or fictive kin for kinship placements, with explicit documentation requirements in case reviews about when kinship is not pursued and why, as well as steps to maintain kinship placements when appropriate.
- 3New and enhanced permanency pathways, including concurrent planning for adoption or guardianship, with clear evidence standards and caregiver input, plus procedures for timely modification or termination of parental rights when in a child’s best interests and when kinship placements are involved.
- 4Protections and practical changes for kin caregivers, including: elimination of an upper age limit (18+) for kinship eligibility, more permissive vetting that does not automatically bar placement based on past allegations absent current safety concerns, and mandatory participation in a Kinship Guardianship Assistance Program (with shorter eligibility windows).
- 5Elimination of the AFDC eligibility requirement for foster care maintenance payments for children placed in a foster family home, ensuring payments are made regardless of AFDC status, if other requirements are met.
- 6Creation of Kinship Placement Support Services within the Promoting Safe and Stable Families framework, including crisis stabilization funds, family finding, re-establishing family relationships, and supports to help kinship families, with a maintenance-of-effort provision requiring states to keep kinship expenditures at or above 2025 levels.
- 7Overall funding and implementation provisions, including an effective-date framework, state-delayed compliance for necessary legislation, and tribal-specific time extensions to comply with new requirements.