Why licensing delays matter now
In September, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) awarded $2.2 million to 14 child welfare jurisdictions to speed up foster family licensing. Awards range from $54,000 to $200,000. The money pays for easier access to fingerprinting and faster background check systems (ACF).
ACF Assistant Secretary Alex J. Adams said outdated equipment and slow systems have held up required background checks. Those delays slow approval for kin and foster families. When a grandparent is ready to take a child in, each week of waiting is a week that child may spend away from family.
The recipients are Alaska, the District of Columbia, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming, plus four tribal communities: the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Georgia, Fort Belknap Indian Community, Kawerak, Inc. and the Knik Tribe.
Where licensing time goes
Licensing time adds up in the waiting between steps. A family submits an application and then waits for a fingerprint appointment. Results come back and sit in a caseworker's queue until someone checks them. Each handoff adds days.
Fingerprinting is a common source of delay. Families in rural areas may live far from the nearest site. Alaska plans to use its grant to bring mobile fingerprinting to rural and remote communities. Utah's commissioner said its award will cut fingerprint delays for rural and high-barrier households and speed up kinship safety assessments (ACF).
The Child Welfare Playbook, a working group of child welfare agencies managed by Bloom Works, recommends tracking how long fingerprint-based checks take from collection to decision. It's possible to get results back and evaluated within hours, and the Playbook suggests aiming for one day each to process and evaluate them. Louisiana and Utah have goals to review fingerprint results the same day. Minnesota's contract for community-based fingerprinting requires a location every 35 miles, with evening and weekend hours (Child Welfare Playbook).
The Playbook also recommends using the FBI's foster care purpose code when you first collect fingerprints. That lets you reuse a caregiver's prints for kinship care or adoption, so families don't have to be fingerprinted twice.
Each grantee will map the gaps in its technology and business processes. Each will also set performance measures so it can track approval times.
How online licensing shortens the timeline
A June 2026 HHS report supports modernizing in modules. Since 2016, states have spent more than $2.2 billion on Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) projects, and fewer than a third of those projects are fully operational. New CCWIS builds have run about six years on average. The report recommends clearer federal guidance on modular systems and software as a service (HHS ASPE).
With Binti Licensing, families apply online, including from their phones. They can see what's left to finish and upload documents as they go. Caseworkers see the status of every application in one place, with missing items flagged, so they can follow up the same day. Caseworkers add training records and background check results to the family's file in the same place. Families know what's next, so fewer applications stall, and caseworkers get time back for home visits.
Louisiana is a recent example. On October 7, 2026, Louisiana DCFS launched HomeReady, an online platform for foster and kinship certification built on Binti (Louisiana Radio Network). DCFS describes HomeReady as part of its A Home for Every Child work (Louisiana DCFS). Secretary Rebecca Harris said the goal is to make it easy for people to become caregivers and easy for DCFS to find the right home for a child.
Binti has launched statewide licensing in more than 15 states, and more than 120,000 foster families have been certified using Binti (Louisiana DCFS).
Where to start
Start by mapping your current path from first inquiry to approval, including the steps around fingerprinting. Where does an application sit idle? Who is waiting on whom? Those answers show where online licensing saves your team the most time.
Want to see how Binti Licensing works for kin and foster families in your state? Talk with our team.
