HELENA — Gov. Greg Gianforte says Montana will join a federal program aimed at improving outcomes in the state’s foster care system.
On Wednesday, at the Montana State Capitol, Gianforte signed an agreement to participate in the “A Home for Every Child” initiative. He was joined by Alex Adams, assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families.
(Watch the video for more on the new partnership.)
“A Home for Every Child” seeks to ensure there is a ratio of at least one licensed foster home or family placement for every child entering foster care. It follows on initiatives promoted by President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, with the goal of modernizing the child welfare system.
“Montana is committed to continuing our efforts to expand recruitment and retention of licensed foster families, increase kinship placements by reducing barriers for extended family members and trusted adults in a child's life to become licensed caregivers, strengthening family preservation services to help families address challenges before entry into foster care becomes necessary, and streamlining licensing processes to remove unnecessary red tape that delays placement of children in qualified homes,” Gianforte said.
Adams said federal leaders are aiming to get better data from states on what’s working well and what’s not. As part of that, he said the administration would exempt participating states from some of the large reports they’ve had to fill out, but require them to provide monthly updates on some of the key data on their foster care systems – with the home-to-child ratio being at the top.
“We're going to release a dashboard that will show every month how Montana compares to, say, Utah or to Idaho or to any of the other participating states,” said Adams. “We think having the right data reported more frequently will go much further than burying states in bureaucracy, red-tape, check-box reports that we frankly did nothing with.”
Leaders with the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services say the number of Montana children in foster care has fallen by almost half since Gianforte took office – from more than 3,300 in 2021 to 1,749 today. However, they’re still well short of the target ratio, currently having about 0.57 foster homes per child in the system.
Gianforte said the state has been primarily focused on working with nonprofits to recruit and support adoptive parents, though they have provided resources in the form of the adoption tax credit approved in 2023. He said he doesn’t believe participation in this initiative will require a major increase in state investment.
“Our focus from the beginning at DPHHS is to provide additional services to biological parents so they can keep their kids – and then when we have a tragic situation where those biological parents can't care for their child and the state has to intervene because of safety issues, to get that child into a permanent loving home as quickly as possible,” said Gianforte.
Montana is the 25th state in the country to sign on to the “Home for Every Child” initiative.
