Recruiting Families Using Data Act of 2025

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 579) to amend parts B and E of title IV of the Social Security Act to improve foster and adoptive parent recruitment and retention, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Recruiting Families Using Data Act introduced by my Ways and Means colleagues, Representatives Randy Feenstra and Brendan Boyle. This bill would make a relatively straightforward but needed update to current law to promote State-level recruitment of foster care families.

Thousands of loving parents open their homes every year to offer care and support for children in need. By doing so, they provide shelter for children who would otherwise be forced to stay in caseworker offices, hospitals, or hotels. However, many of these same parents, for any number of reasons, stop serving as foster families after only 1 year.

In short, there is a dire need for more foster families in our communities. Much of the foster care system is coordinated at the State level, which means we need to enlist the States in helping expand the number of foster families.

Under current law, States are required, as a condition of receiving funding, to have a plan in place to recruit foster and adoptive families, but we know, based on an analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services, that many States continue to face challenges.

This bill would build on existing law by calling on States receiving Federal funding to develop family partnership plans that lay out their specific process for finding potential foster families and recruiting and retaining them in the foster care system.

The legislation also authorizes the evaluation of key data to ensure we identify what efforts have been successful in expanding the availability of foster families.

I thank Representatives Feenstra and Boyle for introducing this legislation and for their bipartisan leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage all my colleagues to support this commonsense piece of legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Feenstra).

Mr. Speaker, nearly 400,000 American children today are in the Nation's child welfare system and counting on us to help them secure access to a permanent, loving, and stable home. At the same time, thousands of parents across the Nation are ready and willing to provide that love and shelter for kids in need. However, more must be done to link those children with those families who will volunteer to help.

The Recruiting Families Using Data Act will give States the tools and incentives to grow the number of foster families able to care for kids who might otherwise remain stuck in other parts of our welfare system. It is a vote of confidence in the generosity and kindness of potential foster families, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 579, the Recruiting Families Using Data Act.

This legislation is a good example of Congress doing the work our constituents sent us here to do. Last Congress, my former colleague, Dan Kildee, worked closely with Representative Feenstra to introduce this bipartisan bill, which is based on solid research and the fundamental principle that if we want to know what is best for foster youth and their families, we should ask them.

The result was this bill, which would require States to create a new family partnership plan to explain how they are identifying, screening, engaging, and supporting foster and adoptive families, in consultation with people with lived experience.

To me, one of the most critical aspects of this will be engaging with the child's family, whether it is by placing foster children with family members directly or making space for kin who can't be foster parents to still support the child and the foster parents.

Last Congress, we marked up this bill in the Ways and Means Committee and sent it to the floor with our unanimous consent. While it passed the House on a strong bipartisan vote, I was disappointed that the bill did not become law. I am glad to support it again. I believe it is a strong complement to the

bipartisan legislation we enacted last year reauthorizing child welfare services, which included many good ideas from both sides of the aisle.

As we continue to hear that Elon Musk and his band of hackers are rampaging through Federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, firing policy experts, falsely accusing Americans of fraud, freezing and terminating investments that were directed by Congress, I hope we can return to the kind of partnership and genuine concern for vulnerable Americans that sparked both bills.

Move fast and break stuff might be a good model for technology companies, but it is wrong for the programs we have created to protect children.

Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this good bill to help ensure that children in foster care are in safe, appropriate homes.

I further urge my colleagues to work with us to stop these indiscriminate, illegal layoffs and funding cuts which threaten to undermine the good bipartisan work we have done on behalf of vulnerable children.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as a father of four, I believe that every child deserves a safe and loving home.

Unfortunately, many vulnerable children in our foster care system lack a family that they can call their own due to the shortage of foster families.

This must change, and that is what this bill does.

My bill, the Recruiting Families Using Data Act, would help States uphold and strengthen their diligent recruitment plans by improving their processes with concrete facts and information that identifies, recruits, and retains qualified foster care homes.

If we are going to address the problems facing the foster care system, we need better data on those that are having a problem. That is why this bill is so important.

This legislation would also establish a family advisory board to share best practices, highlight financial obstacles facing foster families, and keep foster families at the center of the systematic changes for improvement.

With the right tools and right resources, we can find a caring home for every child in our foster care program. That is why this bill is so important.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to stand with me for foster families, and support our children and vote for this wonderful bill.