Title IV-E Prevention Accelerator Grants
Turning prevention authority into operational and sustainable services
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) today announced the Title IV-E Prevention Accelerator Grants to close a practical Family First Prevention Services Act Title IV-E implementation gap: many jurisdictions have authority to claim reimbursement for evidence-based services before foster care becomes necessary, but have not made those services routine or routinely claimable.
Key Points:
- The $7.3 million, 18-month opportunity addresses the urgent need for Title IV-E agencies with approved title IV-E prevention plans to efficiently build the infrastructure that supports implementation, data reporting and claiming for Title IV-E prevention services.
- The Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) found that prevention services accounted for less than 2 percent of Title IV-E reimbursement claims in fiscal year 2023, despite nearly twenty-fold growth in reported expenditures since 2020, and that 60 percent of jurisdictions with approved plans had never submitted a prevention expenditure claim.
- The grants also support ACF's A Home for Every Child campaign, which seeks both to increase and retain appropriate family homes and to safely reduce foster care entry and time in care through prevention and permanency. The Title IV-E Accelerator Grants primarily strengthen the prevention side of that strategy with a goal of reducing the denominator of children entering care.
- ACF chose for funding ten state agencies totaling approximately $7.3 million. Six projects include Motivational Interviewing (MI); others feature Healthy Families America, Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams (START), Functional Family Therapy (FFT), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), and Multisystemic Therapy (MST), and Intercept.
- The portfolio should be judged by whether this time-limited investment produces durable operating capacity, accepted claims, improved service access, safe child and family outcomes, and reusable lessons for other jurisdictions.
