The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) was signed in to law in February 2018 as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act (HR. 1892). Its purpose was to turn the focus of the child welfare system toward keeping children safely with their families to avoid the trauma that results when children are placed in out-of-home care. To increase the number of children who can remain safely at home with their families, the law provides families with greater access to mental health services, substance use treatment, and/or parenting skills courses. This law significantly shifts how the country provides services for families and youth. In particular, it changed the role of community service providers, the way courts advocate and make decisions for families, and the types of placements that youth placed in out-of-home care experience. The law also created the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse, which maintains a continuously updated and comprehensive list of evaluated and tested prevention services and programs. States can use title IV-E funds toward these services and programs to help prevent disruption within families.
This page offers guidance on the role FFPSA plays in primary prevention, the impact of FFPSA on the foster care system, the way FFPSA shifted focus on court involvement, and the effect FFPSA has on older youth who are currently in out-of-home care and will age out of foster care.
Advancing Healthy Outcomes: Eight Ways to Promote the Health and Well-Being of LGBTQ+ Youth Involved With Child Welfare Through FFPSA (PDF - 4,649 KB)
Citrin & Martin (2019)
Center for the Study of Social Policy
Outlines eight specific strategies that can be implemented in light of the Family First Prevention Services Act to address disproportionalities and disparities for LGBTQ+ children and families in the child welfare system.
Creating Prevention-Oriented Child Welfare Systems: Maximizing the Opportunities Within the Family First Prevention Services Act, Part 1 [Webinar]
Capacity Building Center for States (2020)
Provides the first part of a webinar on how to move toward a prevention-oriented child welfare system by maximizing opportunities that exist under the Family First Prevention Services Act.
Creating Prevention-Oriented Child Welfare Systems: Maximizing the Opportunities Within the Family First Prevention Services Act, Part 2 [Webinar]
Capacity Building Center for States (2020)
Provides the second part of a webinar on how to move toward a prevention-oriented child welfare system by maximizing opportunities that exist under the Family First Prevention Services Act.
A Data-Driven Approach to Service Array Guide
Capacity Building Center for States (2019)
Shares an overview of how administrative leaders could conduct a data-driven service array assessment resulting in strategies for service array improvement.
Family First Evidence-Based Practices Exploration and Cost Tool
Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago (2021)
Offers a tool to better assist jurisdictions on the selection and cost of evidence-based programs or practices for their Family First Prevention Services Act prevention plan.
Family First Toolkit Part 1: Planning & Readiness
Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
Offers a step-by-step guide for jurisdictions to collaboratively come to a consensus on activities related to the implementation of FFPSA.
Implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act: A Technical Guide for Agencies, Policymakers and Other Stakeholders (PDF - 2,549 KB)
Children’s Defense Fund (2020)
Details a technical guide that agencies, policymakers, and other stakeholders can utilize when working toward implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act.
A Practitioners Guide to the Family First Prevention Services Act [Video]
Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (2021)
Offers a 1-hour module from a practitioners perspective on the Family First Prevention Services Act, including maltreatment prevention research; overview of the act; and opportunities, challenges, and considerations on implementation.
Congregate Care in the Age of Family First: Family Engagement (PDF - 242 KB)
Capacity Building Center for States (2021)
Provides an understanding of and ways to incorporate family engagement in congregate care under FFPSA.
Congregate Care in the Age of Family First: Trauma-Informed Care (PDF - 234 KB)
Capacity Building Center for States (2021)
Provides an understanding of the trauma-informed care requirements under FFPSA and steps that States and other child welfare agency leaders can take to achieve successful implementation.
Congregate Care in the Age of Family First: Overview (PDF - 400 KB)
Capacity Building Center for States (2021)
Provides an understanding of the congregate care requirements under the Family First Prevention Services Act.
Investing in Community-Based Care for Children and Youth Involved With Child Welfare (PDF - 446 KB)
Capacity Building Center for States (2022)
Provides a list of resources that were created to support the implementation of the provisions of FFPSA on reducing the use of congregate care and use of qualified residential treatment programs.
Leveraging the Family First Prevention Services Act to Improve Use of Title IV-E GAP (PDF - 1,742 KB)
Grandfamilies.org (2019)
Shares pertinent information regarding how the Family First Prevention Services Act impacts the use of kinship families and how States and eligible Tribes are able to promote increased usage of guardianship for children in kinship foster care.
New Opportunities for Kinship Families: Action Steps to Implement the Family First Prevention Services Act in Your Community (PDF - 440 KB)
Grandfamilies.org (2019)
Offers a guide on how States, territories, and Tribes should be thinking about and implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act, including how the act benefits kinships families.
Putting Family First: Developing an Evidence-Based Child Welfare Preventative Practice Model
Annie E. Casey Foundation (2020)
Offers guidance on what State child welfare agencies should be considering when they are developing a preventative practice model that aligns with the Family First Prevention Services Act. This guide discusses evidence-based case management, targeted services to address risk and protective factors, and evidence-based programs that meet specific goals and needs of families.
Understanding the Impact of the Family First Prevention Services Act on Foster Care
Fairfax County (VA) Department of Family Services (2021)
Discusses the implications that FFPSA has on the department's goal of reducing the number of children entering foster care.
Family First Act Supplement to the Diligent Recruitment Navigator (PDF - 112 KB)
AdoptUSKids (2021)
Offers a tool that child welfare systems can use as a supplement of the Diligent Recruitment Navigator tool to improve strategies of recruiting and supporting foster, adoptive, and kinship families as a result of the enactment of FFPSA.
Family First Prevention Services Act Becomes Law
Boo (2019)
North American Council on Adoptable Children
Discusses the impact that FFPSA has on the use of Federal funding to improve family preservation efforts.
Implementing Family Preservation Services for Adoptive and Guardianship Families: Lessons From the Field [Webinar]
AdoptUSKids (2020)
Offers ways that child and family serving systems can create or further improve on providing family preservation services for adoptive and guardianship families. The webinar's PowerPoint slide deck is also available.
Improving Family Preservation Services for Adoptive and Guardianship Families
AdoptUSKids (2020)
Offers a guide on how to expand post-permanency services to include more intensive supports and develop more competent existing adoption and guardianship family preservation services.
Episode 61: Thriving Families, Safer Children - A National Commitment to Well-Being, Part 1 [Podcast]
Child Welfare Information Gateway (2021)
Shares information pertaining to a newly launched national effort in response to the Family First Prevention Services Act where communities are working together to shift their efforts to a more primary prevention-focused child and family-serving jurisdiction.
First-of-Its-Kind National Partnership Aims to Redesign Child Welfare Into Child- and Family Well-Being Systems
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (2020)
Details a first-of-its-kind partnership between Federal agencies; national organizations; local communities; and private, public, and philanthropic sectors to address intergenerational cycles of trauma and poverty that increase the risk of children being placed in out-of-home care.
Framework for Prevention of Child Maltreatment
Child Welfare Information Gateway (2021)
Details the three levels of prevention efforts and how an approach to be more focused on being preventative versus reactive results in a comprehensive service framework that improves outcomes for children and families.
Planning Title IV-E Prevention Services: A Toolkit for States
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (2020)
Provides a toolkit that can be used by States when looking to develop their prevention services plan in accordance with FFPSA.
Prevention Planning Roundtable
Capacity Building Center for States (2021)
Provides direct testimony from child welfare leaders and their experiences with prevention planning as a result of FFPSA.
Family First Communication Strategy: Courts and Legal Partners (PDF - 230 KB)
Capacity Building Center for States & Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago (2021)
Offers guidance for legal partners on the court-specific implications in reference to FFPSA provisions. ffers guidance for legal partners on the court-specific implications in reference to FFPSA provisions.
Family First Prevention Services Act [Webinar]
American Bar Association (2021)
Provides an overview of an implementation tool the Center on Children and the Law developed to successfully implement provisions outlined in FFPSA.
Judicial Leadership and Key Tenets for Improving Outcomes for Families Impacted by Substance Use Disorders
National Conference on Juvenile and Family Court Judges (2022)
Offers suggestions on how courts can easily share ideas and strategies on how best to improve court policies and systems for families that are impacted by substance use disorders.
Legal Professional Roles: Implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act (PDF - 828 KB)
American Bar Association, Center on Children and the Law
Details the roles and responsibilities that legal professionals have when implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act, including State and local policy change, direct practice implementation, and out-of-home care placements for children and youth.
The Role of the Court in Implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 (PDF - 1,800 KB)
Tanner & Howze (2019)
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges
Discusses the critical role courts play in the implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act, including an overview of the law, its impact on out-of-home placements for children and youth, and the role courts have in oversight of a child’s case plan.
Family First Prevention Services Act: Pregnant and Parenting Youth FAQs (PDF - 754 KB)
Center for the Study of Social Policy (2018)
Shares answers to a list of frequently asked questions regarding how implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act impacts pregnant and parenting youth, including how the law applies, eligibility of services, and changes in services that can be offered.
Leveraging the FFPSA for Older Youth: Improving Transitions
Pokempner (2019)
American Bar Association
Details how the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) brings about provisions to the Chafee Foster Care to Independence program and Education Training Voucher program to better equip young adults who age out of the foster care system with supports needed to achieve a successful transition to adulthood.
Leveraging the FFPSA for Older Youth: Prevention Provisions
Pokempner (2019)
American Bar Association
Presents how the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) impacts how States use title IV-E funds for prevention services, including how to equip families with resources to prevent unnecessary removals, reducing the use of congregate care for older youth in foster care, and how to better equip expecting and parenting older youth with necessary services and supports.
Leveraging the FFPSA for Older Youth: Reduction of Group Care Provisions
Pokempner (2019)
American Bar Association
Discusses how the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) plays a role in reducing the use of group care for older youth in foster care and the importance of placing youth and young adults in family-like settings.
We Are Worth It: Recommendations for Implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act Developed by Transition-Age Youth of California
Voice Our Independent Choices for Emancipation Support (2020)
Offers recommendations from the perspectives of transition-aged youth in California on how States can and should effectively implement FFPSA.
How Some States Use Title IV-E Foster Care Funding for Family-Based Facilities That Treat Substance Use Disorders
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (2021)
Provides examples of how some States have reallocated their title IV-E foster care funds to family-based facilities that support families with substance use disorders.
Implementing the Substance Use Disorder Provisions of the Family First Prevention Services Act
Children and Family Futures (2019)
Offers a webinar and toolkit that can be used by State leaders to work collaboratively and access information to implement FFPSA's substance use disorder provisions.
New Law Helps States Pay for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services With Federal Foster Care Funds
National Academy for State Health Policy (2018)
Discusses how FFPSA has allowed States to utilize title IV-E foster care funding to be reallocated to help pay for mental health and substance use disorder services.