Trump signs order to strengthen US child welfare system

NEW YORK (AP) — Tackling a lower-profile issue for the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at strengthening child-welfare programs nationwide.

It comes as child-protection agencies across the U.S. struggle with effects related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar hailed the order as a step toward “bold reforms.” The goals are ambitious — curtailing child maltreatment, strengthening adoption programs and encouraging supports for at-risk families so fewer children need to be separated from their homes and placed in foster care.

An advocate for at-risk children and families, University of Michigan law professor Vivek Sankaran, said it was difficult to give an immediate verdict as to whether the proposals are significant or “a lot of fluff with little substance.”

Sankaran said he found some basis for optimism in the performance of senior HHS official Jerry Milner, “who is desperately trying to change things” since his appointment three years ago to oversee much of the department's child welfare work.

The executive order envisions three basic areas of reform:

—Creating “robust partnerships” between state agencies and public, private, faith-based and community organizations. The goals would include development of community-based, abuse-prevention and family support services and holding states accountable for recruiting an adequate number of foster and adoptive families.

—Improving resources provided to caregivers and those in care. The order says HHS will increase the availability of trauma-informed training, support guardianship through funding and grants, and enhance support for kinship care and for the roughly 20,000 young people who age out of foster care each year.

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