# Recruiting Families Using Data Act of 2025 - Plain Language Summary

## What This Bill Does

This bill aims to improve how states recruit and keep foster and adoptive parents by requiring them to use data and develop comprehensive plans. Currently, states handle foster care recruitment differently with varying levels of success. This legislation would require every state to create a "Family Partnership Plan" that outlines specific strategies for finding, supporting, and retaining foster and adoptive families. The bill emphasizes using real data to identify problems and measure progress, rather than relying on informal approaches.

## Key Requirements for States

States would need to develop plans that include: identifying and recruiting relatives and other family connections as potential caregivers; creating personalized recruitment strategies for each child needing placement; collecting detailed annual data on how many licensed foster families exist and how many aren't being used; gathering feedback from foster and adoptive parents about what makes the job difficult; and specifically addressing barriers to recruiting families from racial and ethnic backgrounds that match the children in their care. States would also need to establish foster family advisory boards to help improve recruitment and retention efforts.

## Who Benefits and When

This bill would primarily benefit children in foster care by increasing the availability of stable family placements and reducing reliance on group homes and institutional care. Foster and adoptive parents would benefit from better support systems and clearer pathways to licensure. States would have until October 1, 2026, to implement these changes, with some flexibility if they need to pass new state legislation. The bill requires annual reporting to Congress starting in fiscal year 2025, creating transparency about how well states are doing at recruiting and keeping foster families.

Recruiting Families Using Data Act of 2025

Grassley, Chuck

Recruiting Families Using Data Act of 2025This bill requires state plans for child welfare services to provide for the development and implementation of a family partnership plan to improve foster care placement stability, increase rates of kinship placements, and align the composition of foster and adoptive families with the needs of children in or entering foster care.The Children's Bureau of the Administration for Children and&nbsp;Families also must include in its annual report information from states about the number, demographics, and characteristics of foster and adoptive families as well as a summary of the challenges related to recruiting and being foster or adoptive parents.