What A Home for Every Child is
A Home for Every Child is a federal initiative from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). Its goal is at least one licensed foster home for every child in foster care in each state. Nationwide, there are 57 licensed foster homes for every 100 children in care. All 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico have joined (ACF).
The Children's Bureau set out the framework in Technical Bulletin #14 in December 2025 (Children's Bureau). States that opt into the pilot replace their traditional federal Program Improvement Plan with a shorter plan built around the home-to-child ratio. More than 30 jurisdictions have filed pilot plans with the Children's Bureau.
What the state reports every month
Each pilot state reports five federal measures to ACF every month (Indiana pilot plan, Ohio pilot plan):
- Home-to-child ratio: licensed homes, plus unlicensed homes with a child placed, divided by the number of children in foster care on the last day of the month.
- Maintaining family connections: the share of children in care who live with relatives or kin.
- Use of congregate care: the share of days children spend in group homes and other congregate settings.
- Recent maltreatment history: the share of children with a confirmed report of abuse or neglect who had another confirmed report in the prior six months.
- Home disruptions: the share of foster homes where a placement ended unexpectedly and a child had to move.
Each state also sets its own lead measures, such as the number of newly licensed homes or the share of children placed with kin at first placement. ACF publishes each state's ratio on its public A Home for Every Child dashboard (ACF).
The A Home for Every Child Innovation Challenge runs from October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027. ACF will award up to $7 million: $3 million for the highest ratio, $2 million for the second highest, and $1 million each to the two most improved states (ACF).
What states are doing
The ratio has two parts: licensed homes are the numerator and children in care are the denominator. State plans include strategies for both.
Kin first. Indiana tracks the share of children placed with relatives or kin at first placement and is exploring a separate licensing path for kin (Indiana pilot plan). Ohio plans to reduce non-safety barriers to kin licensure (Ohio pilot plan). Texas issued new kinship foster home standards in November 2025, and Mississippi is focused on finding and engaging relatives within a child's first 30 days in care, according to their pilot plans.
Recruitment and retention. Mississippi's Room for One More campaign recruits foster families in high-need areas. Tennessee holds monthly listening sessions with foster parents and pairs new families with mentors, according to its pilot plan. Ohio is building statewide foster parent mentor supports (Ohio pilot plan).
Prevention. Ohio tracks families served by Ohio START and Triple P, along with its foster care entry rate (Ohio pilot plan). Tennessee is focusing prevention work on 15 counties with high foster care entry rates, according to its pilot plan.
Courts and partners. Tennessee is working with its Administrative Office of the Courts on a bench card for juvenile court judges. Mississippi's child welfare agency partnered with the Mississippi Legislature and youth court officials to build its plan, according to their pilot plans.
Children with higher needs. Ohio tracks the number and capacity of treatment foster homes (Ohio pilot plan). Tennessee plans to expand residential beds for children with high acuity needs and add step-down placements.
Where governors and legislators come in
Several of the levers in these plans depend on state law, budgets and executive priorities.
Licensing standards. State law and rule set what foster families and relatives must meet to become licensed. In May 2026, the Children's Bureau updated its National Model Foster Family Home Licensing Standards and published kin-specific standards beside them. More than 20 title IV-E agencies have been approved to use kin-specific licensing since the 2023 federal rule took effect. The memo also recommends issuing a license within 90 days of a completed application for non-relatives and within 7 days of placement for kin. It names out-of-state child abuse and neglect registry checks as the longest step in licensing and encourages states to fulfill those requests electronically and without a fee (Children's Bureau). The Child Welfare Playbook's kin licensing standards, developed with more than 50 agencies, recommend collecting only essential information from kin households and making fingerprinting fast and easy (Child Welfare Playbook).
Prevention funding. The number of agencies claiming Title IV-E prevention funds went from 5 in FY2020 to 31 in FY2024. Starting in FY2027, the federal share for prevention services will be set at 50% to 83%, depending on the state (Congressional Research Service). In October 2026, the Children's Bureau confirmed that states can collect prevention data in an external system that exchanges data with the state's CCWIS (Children's Bureau).
Data systems. Monthly reporting depends on accurate, current data. A June 2026 HHS report found that 85% of the $2.2 billion spent on Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) projects since 2016, about $1.9 billion, went to maintaining legacy systems (HHS ASPE).
Workforce. A national study from ACF's Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation found that caseworkers spend an average of 4.3 hours a day on paperwork and documentation (OPRE). That time comes out of home visits and outreach to relatives.
South Carolina's approach
In October 2026, HHS published a case study of South Carolina, one of the states with the highest home-to-child ratios in 2025. South Carolina's ratio was 0.65, above the national average of 0.57. The number of children in care fell from 4,070 in 2020 to 3,322 in 2025 (HHS ASPE).
The South Carolina Department of Social Services (SCDSS) amended its licensing regulations for relatives and fictive kin, including its fire marshal standards (HHS ASPE).
SCDSS digitized licensing. Approvals had often run past the state's 120-day target because of paper submissions and coordination across multiple parties. SCDSS implemented Binti, a commercially available licensing platform. The case study reports that the software gave staff real-time visibility into each application and helped them find and address bottlenecks (HHS ASPE).
On prevention, families who are screened out of an investigation and have service needs can be referred to Family Resource Centers. Through the Teen Alternative Prevention Pathway, schools and law enforcement can refer teens at risk of entering foster care to in-home stabilization services (HHS ASPE).
Questions to ask in the first 90 days
- What is the state's current home-to-child ratio, and how does it vary by region?
- How long does it take to license a foster family, and how long for a relative?
- What share of children are placed with kin at first placement?
- How many families are referred to prevention services, and how many complete them?
- Can the state's data systems produce the monthly federal measures without manual work?
- Has the state adopted kin-specific licensing standards?
To see how Binti supports a state's A Home for Every Child plan, talk with our team.
