To help your state align with ACF’s A Home for Every Child initiative, embrace innovation

In late 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services kicked off a new initiative aimed at revamping foster care in America. Known as A Home for Every Child and overseen by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the initiative has a stated goal of ensuring that there are enough foster homes available to serve every child who needs one right away.

Leaders at state health and human services departments are now moving to improve their systems or processes to align with A Home for Every Child. Keep reading to learn innovative ideas for how your team can get started.

What is A Home for Every Child?

A Home for Every Child (AHFEC) is a set of grant funding guidelines intended to expand available foster homes while also moving fewer children into the system. To achieve a goal of reducing home-to-child ratios to 1:1 or better, AHFEC recommends systems and process updates that range from implementing a modern current child welfare information system (CCWIS) to speeding up licensing procedures for foster parents.

• Key pillars of AHFEC include preventing more children from entering foster care, creating a larger pool of available foster homes, emphasizing placement urgency, prioritizing kinship care and retaining more caregivers.
• Dozens of states are currently working to align with the AHFEC initiative.
• The initiative doesn’t require that states use any particular platforms or technology products but does set broad guidelines for how states should change their systems and processes.
• AHFEC is focused on not just compliance, but on achieving specific operational outcomes.

How can state human services departments improve their systems or processes to align with A Home for Every Child?

State human services departments or agencies looking to align with AHFEC guidelines will typically need to adjust at least some of their systems and processes to do so. But this is not a one-size-fits-all prescription, as your agency’s specific needs may differ from those of peer agencies in other states.

Here are six innovative ways that states are moving to align with AHFEC:

Creating efficiencies and streamlining foster parent licensing

In addition to speeding up licensing requirements for caregivers who are related to the child they will be fostering, some states are speeding up foster home licensing more broadly. To do this, states may focus on making process improvements that reduce the number of days needed to approve a license while also providing a better customer experience for foster parents.

This kind of move can be relatively simple to implement but delivers a big impact with clear ROI.

Embrace low-hanging tech efficiencies

While AHFEC does encourage modernizing your CCWIS, a huge investment like that is not the only technology-focused move you can make. To start, consider embracing ancillary tech improvements like finding efficiencies in certification or background checks and experimenting with more effective assessment tools or new AI solutions.

These lower-hanging fruits can be faster and less costly to implement, while still delivering notable results.

Prevent or reduce entries into the foster system

A key aspect of AHFEC is not just expanding foster home supply but reducing demand. This typically involves both measures to help stabilize a child’s birth family so the child can avoid entering the foster care system in the first place, and to place children already in foster care in a permanent home more quickly.

This strategy can help lower the overall number of children needing foster care at any one time, which means there’s more room for each child who does end up in a foster home.

Data-driven targeting and performance analysis

As you begin to modernize your tech tools, you gain access to the analytics you need to make smarter, more data-driven decisions. For example, you can build predictive models to help you improve placement matching or boost your rates of caregiver retention.

You’ll also be able to track your KPIs in real time, allowing you to better understand where your efforts are succeeding and where you may need to devote more resources.

Kinship-first placement

AHFEC puts a major emphasis on kinship placement, prioritizing fostering a child with relatives over other alternatives. To facilitate this, states are streamlining licensing for caregivers who are also kin and implementing dedicated kinship placement strategies.

This approach can help reduce the demand for traditional foster homes, as relatives can provide a child in need with a permanent housing solution.

New foster parent recruitment strategies

States are exploring network-driven and community-based recruitment strategies to encourage more people to become foster parents. A network-driven approach might involve asking existing foster parents to talk to their friends, while a community-based strategy could mean focusing on trying to reach members of local civic organizations or faith-based groups rather than relying on mass marketing campaigns.

Here, targeted campaigns reflecting child demographics may also be useful (for example, some states have tried campaigns focused on recruiting foster parents specifically from within tribal communities).

What are your next steps to align with A Home for Every Child?

Here’s how to get started with aligning your foster care system more closely with AHFEC guidelines:

1. Consult your peers

Talk with your peers at child welfare agencies in other states to learn how they are tackling AHFEC. These conversations can help you identify potential quick wins or learn how to achieve meaningful incremental progress.

2. Attend conferences and look to thought leaders

To get a broader perspective on how states are aligning with AHFEC, you should also attend conferences and look for content on the subject put out by relevant thought leaders. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here; just find out what works elsewhere and adapt it to fit your state’s needs.

3. Work with an advisor

Seek additional guidance from an advisory firm that understands foster care and AHFEC, preferably one that leads with human-centered design workshops and solution ideation. An advisor can help you learn the nuances of AHFEC guidelines, assess your specific needs and develop a plan to bring your department into closer alignment so you qualify for grant funding.

How Wipfli can help

We help state government agencies improve performance, compliance and outcomes. Let’s talk about how we can make your agency stronger in areas like AHFEC alignment. Start a conversation.

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