Child and Family Services Improvement Act
CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the Senate amendment to S. 3525, which represents the bipartisan and bicameral agreement on the Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006.
I was pleased to have introduced the Senate amendment with my friend and partner on the Senate Finance Committee, Senator MAX BAUCUS. Senator Baucus and I were joined by Senator ORRIN G. HATCH, and Senator JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, Jr. and Senator OLYMPIA J. SNOWE. All of these members have a long history of support for important programs to improve the well-being of children.
This important legislation reauthorizes the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program which provides services to families for family support, family preservation, time-limited reunification of families, and for adoption and post-adoption services. These are critical funding streams, and the reauthorization of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program ensures that families can rely on these preventative and supportive services.
The legislation also aligns the Child Welfare Services Act with the prevention activities of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program by providing incentives to States to invest in prevention services while allowing States to continue current State spending on existing State priorities.
S. 3525 provides support for increased caseworker visits as well as adopts a version of President Bush's proposal to provide a voucher for mentoring services for children of prisoners.
Additionally, the legislation increases access for funding for Indian tribes, which was a key priority of both Senator Baucus and Senator KENT CONRAD.
The legislation that will soon be signed by the President also includes grants for regional partnerships to address the growing problem of methamphetamine and other substance abuse and addictions that have had a substantial impact on child welfare systems and services.
Funding for these competitive grants was a key priority of mine, and I am pleased that the compromise we were able to work out with the House maintains the support for grants to improve the outcomes for children affected by methamphetamine abuse and addiction.
Mr. President, the Senate Finance Committee did a great deal of work on issues relating to child welfare. We held the first full committee hearing in 10 years on child welfare, and we held an additional hearing on the effects of the methamphetamine epidemic on the child welfare system. We worked on a bipartisan basis to mark up and pass the Improving Outcomes for Children Affected by Meth Act of 2005. Key provisions of that bill are features in the legislation which will soon be signed into law.
But there is more that can be done to strengthen and improve child welfare services. I intend to continue to work on a bipartisan basis to develop and enact reforms to ensure that all children have access to loving, permanent homes.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff who worked tirelessly to get this bill done. Members of Congress in both the House and the Senate are very well served by our staffs. These men and women care a great deal about these programs, and we are indebted to them for their insights and analysis.
I am grateful to the talented staff from the office of Senator Baucus, specifically, Diedra Henry-Spires, Doug Steiger, and Michelle Easton. Additionally, I am grateful to Senator Rockefeller's extremely knowledgeable aid Barbara Pryor.
I appreciate the work of the staff on the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the House Committee on Ways and Means, Matt Weidinger and Christine Calpin for the majority and Nick Gwyn and Sonja Nesbit for the minority.
I also thank the dedicated analyst from the Congressional Research Service, Emilie Stoltzfus who provided staff with invaluable expertise on child welfare programs.
Thanks to Christina Hawley Anthony from the Congressional Budget Office as well as legislative counsels Ruth Ernst and James Grossman.
Finally, I appreciate the efforts of my own Finance Committee policy lead on this issue, Becky Shipp as well as Mark Hayes, Ted Totman, and Kolan Davis.
Mr. President, because a formal conference was not convened on this bill, there is no conference report filed. However, the staff has prepared a section-by-section analysis of the Senate-House agreement for purposes of the legislative history.
Mr. President, some will say this has been a ``do nothing congress.'' I couldn't disagree more, and I believe that the children and families served by this legislation would disagree as well.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the section-by-section analysis to which I referred be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Section-by-Section Analysis
S. 3525, THE CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2006, AS AMENDED
(Prepared by the Staff of the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, September 27, 2006)
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