HHS lays out child-welfare budget priorities: prevention, kinship and fewer out‑of‑state placements

BISMARCK — The Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday told the House Appropriations Human Services Division it will use the 2025‑27 budget to push prevention services, expand kinship care and keep more children in North Dakota rather than sending them to out‑of‑state placements.

Corey Peterson, director of the Children and Family Services section at HHS, said the department’s approach is to “facilitate and deliver the services that support children’s safety, children’s permanency and well‑being,” and to prevent entries to foster care whenever possible.

The department said several changes since 2018 — a child protection redesign, a centralized intake, a foster‑care licensing redesign and an adoption redesign — have been intended to move the system toward family and community‑based care. Peterson said HHS has prioritized keeping children close to home and has had no children placed out of state in residential facilities for the last two and a half years, which the department called a notable accomplishment.

Why it matters: HHS told lawmakers that parental substance use and family economic hardship remain the two…