NCJ Number
210006
Date Published
2003
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This bulletin guides Ohio juvenile courts in making changes in their handling of cases in order to comply with the mandates of Federal Title IV-E Foster Care program.
Abstract
The Title IV-E Foster Care program authorizes Federal assistance for States in caring for needy children who cannot live at home by providing funds to cover some of the expenses of maintaining them in foster homes and child care institutions and by paying some of the associated administrative and training costs. This is an open-ended entitlement program that has been administered since 1980 by the Children's Bureau in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. An overview of the Title IV-E program indicates the types of operations and kinds of placements that qualify for the funding, as well as the costs that are reimbursable. Compliance with conditions for receipt of Title IV-E funds requires judicial review and oversight of the officials responsible for child protection. This judicial monitoring is intended to ensure that children are not removed from their family homes except when necessary for their welfare; that families are not broken up without reasonable efforts to keep them intact; and that once children have been removed from their homes, reasonable efforts are made either to reunite them with their families or to settle them into other safe and permanent living arrangements. This bulletin discusses how these same mandates for judicial review apply in delinquency cases and what the courts must do to ensure that any out-of-home placements of a juvenile judged delinquent qualify for IV-E funding. The bulletin concludes with a description of the logistics for receiving reimbursement under IV-E. 27 notes