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HHS Assistant Secretary Alex Adams unveils ‘A Home for Every Child’ campaign to boost foster-home capacity
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Summary
Alex Adams, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, announced HHS’s December launch of A Home for Every Child, said 15 jurisdictions have joined, cited a reported shortfall in foster placements and urged listeners to press state leaders to enroll.
Alex Adams, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, said the Department of Health and Human Services launched a campaign in December called A Home for Every Child to increase the national ratio of foster homes to children.
Adams framed the campaign as an implementation measure for the Fostering the Future executive order signed in November by President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump. "When we say a home for every child, what we're trying to do is we're trying to increase the ratio of foster homes to foster kids nationally," he said.
Adams cited what he described as a national shortage of foster homes. "If we have a 100 foster kids coming into the system, we only have 57 homes to care for them," he said, presenting that figure as an example of the gap the campaign aims to close. He warned that insufficient placements can leave children in "nontraditional settings, government offices, hotels, Airbnbs." The statistic and consequences were stated by Adams during the briefing and are reported here as his assertions.
As an incentive, Adams said states that join the campaign will receive administrative relief intended to reduce paperwork so staff can spend more time working directly with children and families. He said 100 days after launch, "we now have 15 jurisdictions, 14 states, and the District Of Columbia joining this initiative," and that participating states will provide monthly data on the ratio of homes to kids. "We'll see trends," he said, adding that cross-state comparisons and competition could drive program improvement.
In closing, Adams urged listeners to contact governors' offices, state lawmakers and in-state advocates to encourage more states to join so "we have homes waiting on kids, not kids waiting on homes." He thanked attendees before the briefing ended. No formal vote or action was recorded in this briefing.
Next steps described by Adams: participating jurisdictions will report monthly foster-home-to-child ratios to HHS to allow trend monitoring and comparisons; Adams asked stakeholders to promote state participation so the campaign can scale.
