A Home for Every Child

A Home for Every Child is a national initiative of the Administration for Children and Families focused on ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow up in a safe, stable, and loving home.

The initiative is designed to address both sides of the child welfare equation by reducing entries into foster care through effective prevention and by increasing the availability of foster and kinship homes through stronger recruitment, kin-first approaches, and improved retention of caregivers.

At its core, A Home for Every Child is about right-sizing the ratio of available homes to children in need so that there are homes waiting on kids, not kids waiting on homes.

A happy multigenerational family hugging and having fun outside.

Alex J. Adams, PharmD, MPH, serves as Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families. Assistant Secretary Adams brings years of health, human services, education, and regulatory expertise to advance President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s broader vision to Make America Healthy Again. Prior to leading ACF, Dr. Adams spent more than ten years in Idaho State Government. He led the Governor’s zero-based regulation initiative, which resulted in Idaho becoming the least regulated state in the nation. Dr. Adams also made significant efforts to improve Idaho’s child welfare system, enacting kin-specific licensing standards, announcing paid family leave for foster parents, extending foster care to age 23, and overseeing record recruitment and retention of foster homes. This webpage showcases resources that support the priorities identified by Assistant Secretary Adams.

Read More on Leadership: https://acf.gov/about/bio/alex-j-adams

Read More on A Home for Every Child: https://acf.gov/a-home-for-every-child

Family Time and Visits

Stakeholder Resource

Consistent visits between parents and children aren't just emotionally meaningful; they are also often a formal requirement in reunification plans. However, getting to visits can be challenging. A parent without reliable transportation, who works…

Reunification Assessment Resource Guide

Toolkit

Before a child can come home, someone must determine that the home is safe and sustainable. This guide from Texas shows what that assessment process looks like; it details what factors are weighed, what strengths are considered, and what gaps…

Path to Reunification

Stakeholder Resource

This resource is built for parents, which makes it especially valuable for practitioners. Designed to reduce confusion and fear, this Los Angeles County webpage breaks the reunification process into steps from a family's point of view. Reading it…

Navigating the Child Welfare System as a Father

Stakeholder Resource

Many fathers enter child welfare involvement feeling confused, sidelined, or even afraid. They may not know their rights, aren't sure who to talk to, or don't understand how their involvement, or lack of it, affects their child's case. This Child…

Common Goal: Reunification

Stakeholder Resource

This plain-language page from Wisconsin outlines the shared expectations and milestones in the reunification process, and provides a clear look at what parents must do and what caseworkers are expecting. It is a practical primer for Temporary…

Identifying and Engaging Fathers

Stakeholder Resource

Fathers are often the missing piece in family service plans — not because they don't want to be involved, but because systems were not built with them in mind. This Child Welfare Information Gateway webpage addresses that directly, offering…