ACF Congressional Justification FY 2024

As the nation’s largest human services administration, ACF works every day with urgency to strengthen the well-being of our nation’s children and families so all families can thrive. ACF’s FY 2024 budget request advances our commitment to prevention and a whole-family approach through investments that: 

Increase child and family safety and well-being —  

• Child welfare: Shift focus from placement to prevention. Increase services that focus on family preservation. Expand supports for grandparents and other kinship caregivers, prevent and combat racial disparities and disparate outcomes, provide new funding for legal representation, continue community-based child abuse prevention, and support families affected by caregiver substance-use disorder.  
• Family violence: Increase support for survivors of domestic violence and their children by establishing a new cash assistance program, increasing resources for the Domestic Violence hotline, and building a demonstration program to support survivors experiencing housing instability, substance use coercion, and child welfare involvement.   
• Human services disaster response: Provide comprehensive support during times of emergencies. 

Strengthen the early childhood sector to meet the needs of children and families —Support increased access to affordable, high-quality child care for families. Funds the Child Care and Development Block Grant at a historic level of $9 billion and proposes $600 billion over 10 years to support expanded access to high quality child care and preschool. Moves the field toward a thriving wage for all staff, including a down payment to create pay parity between Head Start educators and elementary school staff with similar qualifications, as well as a cost of living adjustment for Head Start.

Build economic stability — Increase base funding for heating and cooling assistance to low-income households through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.  

Create greater opportunity for youth, young adults and young parents — Further strengthen flexible support for youth who are exiting or have exited foster care and support youth in maintaining safe and stable housing through a new demonstration program to build community-based prevention approaches.  

Fulfill our nation-to-nation commitment to tribes — Respond to challenges by funding new tribal programs to preserve indigenous languages and creating a demonstration program to strengthen youth mental health by embedding trauma-informed mental health support across youth-engaging systems. 

Support for Refugees and Unaccompanied Children — Continues to rebuild the refugee resettlement infrastructure and provides support for up to 125,000 refugees. Ensures resources to care for all unaccompanied children referred to ACF and continues to expand critical child welfare services, including post-release services.