Idaho's Health Department Shifts Focus to Keeping Kids at Home

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has big plans to change how it handles foster care. They want to spend more money and hire more staff to keep kids safe in their own homes instead of sending them to foster care. Next year, they've asked for almost $15 million more, a total of $65. 2 million, and 68 new staff members to make this happen. If the Idaho Legislature says yes, this money will go toward preventing kids from ending up in foster care, reducing the workload of caseworkers, helping foster parents, and finding better placements for kids who do need to go into care. Right now, most kids in the custody of Health and Welfare are in some kind of care setting, like foster care or group homes. Only about 15% of kids stay in their homes and get services to keep them safe there. Health and Welfare wants to flip this, so 85% of kids can stay home and get these prevention services. Alex Adams, the director of Health and Welfare, thinks this is a good plan. He says that sending a kid to foster care should be the last resort, like in cases of severe abuse. Senator Melissa Wintrow agrees, saying that investing in prevention services is important to help both kids and families. The budget request breaks down into four main areas: keeping kids safe at home, improving placements for kids in foster care, supporting foster parents better, and reducing the workload of agency workers. This includes new jobs and money for all these areas. They also want to raise payments for foster care and assistance to $74. 5 million next year. The final decision on the budget is still a few months away. Governor Brad Little will give his own budget request in January, and the Idaho Legislature will start its 2025 session around the same time. That’s when they'll make the final call on how much money to give to Health and Welfare.