ACF Congressional Justification FY 2023

ACF is pleased to present the FY 2023 President’s Budget request for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has profoundly exacerbated challenges facing America’s children, youth, families, and communities and made it more essential than ever for the government to meet people where they are. At ACF, we are invested in the well-being of the entire family and are working to break the cycle of multigenerational poverty by applying comprehensive and integrated approaches to promote financial stability, upward mobility, and healthy child development. 

This Budget reflects our commitment to provide critical support to the children and families we serve. Current agency-wide priorities include applying a preventative, upstream lens to foster well-being among the populations we serve, implementing whole-family and community-based approaches to supporting economic mobility, and facilitating recovery from and resiliency in a range of crises and emergency situations. Across these priorities — and across all of the work we do — we are seeking to create more opportunities for those who have been historically underserved and disproportionately affected by persistent poverty and inequality.

In line with these priorities, the FY 2023 ACF Budget prioritizes investments and improvements in child welfare programs that will reduce child abuse and provide more families with the support they need to remain safely together. It proposes to expand prevention services, increase funding for Court Improvement programs, provide new dedicated funding for legal representation, and continue to invest in Regional Partnership Grants to benefit children affected by a caregiver’s substance-use disorder.  

The Budget also includes investments that continue increases in early childhood programs, expand supports for victims of family violence, provide supports for increased refugee arrivals, bolster the capacity of the unaccompanied children program, and create demonstrations of whole-family approaches to service delivery. The Budget is not just a statement of ACF’s priorities but also a driver of action and change to support the well-being of families and children.