Dear State Child Welfare Director,
We are pleased to share the Children’s Bureau Information Memorandum (IM), ACYF-CB-IM-26-02: Updated National Model Foster Family Home Licensing Standards, Kin-Specific Foster Family Home Licensing Standards, and Updates to the Responsibilities and Recommendations for Licensing Agencies.
This IM is a central component of ACF’s A Home for Every Child initiative. It is grounded in a clear and urgent need: ensuring that every child in foster care has access to a safe, stable, and nurturing family placement without unnecessary delay. Across the country, agencies continue to face a gap between the number of children entering care and the availability of licensed foster homes. Addressing this gap requires not only recruiting more families, but also removing barriers that prevent qualified caregivers from stepping forward.
Kinship care remains one of the most important and effective ways to support children who cannot safely remain with their parents. While between 38 and 43 percent of children experience placement with relatives or kin at some point during their time in care, most children in foster care are still placed in non-kin settings. This gap is even more pronounced for older youth. Nearly half of children from birth to age 10 are placed with relatives, compared to only about one-quarter of 17-year-olds.
For additional context and state examples, we encourage you to review the recent ASPE brief, States Promote Kinship Care Though Opportunity Remains, which highlights strategies states are using to expand kinship care and identifies areas for continued progress: https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/states-promote-kinship-care-though-opportunity-remains
These patterns highlight a significant opportunity. In many cases, relatives and trusted adults are willing to care for children but face barriers in becoming licensed. Differences in how states define “relative” or “kin,” along with licensing standards designed primarily for non-relative foster homes, can unintentionally limit the pool of available caregivers and delay placements with family.
In developing this IM, we carefully reviewed existing standards and stakeholder feedback to identify opportunities to streamline processes without compromising child safety. The updated National Model Foster Family Home Licensing Standards are designed to reduce unnecessary administrative burden, clarify expectations, and make it easier for qualified families to become licensed while maintaining safety. By removing requirements that do not meaningfully contribute to safety, these standards support agencies in recruiting and retaining more foster families while maintaining strong protections for children.
Importantly, this IM also supports the implementation of the final rule on kin-specific foster family home approval standards. These provisions allow title IV-E agencies to claim foster care maintenance payments for children placed in kinship homes approved under separate standards and ensure that kinship foster family homes receive critical financial support. Together, these changes create a more accessible and supportive pathway for kin caregivers to become licensed and better positioned to meet children’s needs.
The IM includes two key resources to support your efforts:
- Attachment A: Updated National Model Foster Family Home Licensing Standards, including kin-specific standards presented alongside non-relative standards for clarity and alignment.
- Attachment B: Licensing agency responsibilities and recommendations, with a focus on improving timeliness, responsiveness, and overall efficiency in the licensing process.
Attachment B is a new addition but recognizes an important truth: licensing agencies can become an impediment to licensure if processes are slow and bureaucratic. We encourage you to review this appendix with your licensing team and look for the opportunity to move at the speed of care. Simply put, when a prospective foster family is ready to open their home and the heart of a child, look for ways to roll out the red carpet.
We want to be clear: this IM does not establish new requirements for title IV-E agencies. Rather, it provides a framework to support states in modernizing and strengthening their licensing practices. States that choose to align with these model standards may find greater flexibility, improved consistency, and stronger outcomes in recruiting, approving, and retaining foster families.
We encourage you to review your current licensing standards and consider where changes could reduce delays, expand your pool of caregivers, and better support kinship placements. Even incremental adjustments, such as streamlining processes, revisiting definitions of kin, or adopting kin-specific pathways, can have a meaningful impact on timely placement and stability for children.
At its core, this effort is about ensuring that children experience as little disruption as possible and can grow up in safe, loving, and connected families. By making licensing more accessible, responsive, and aligned with the realities of families’ lives, you play a critical role in making A Home for Every Child a reality.
Thank you for your continued leadership and partnership in this vital work!
Best regards,