Wyden Outlines Priorities for New Child Welfare Lead to Protect Vulnerable Children
“Inaction risks allowing ongoing harm to children, undermining child safety, and further hollowing out child welfare programs for political gain.”
Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., provided a list of policy and oversight priorities for the newly appointed lead of America's child welfare agency to ensure that vulnerable children across America are protected amid Donald Trump ramping up his war on kids.
“Recently enacted policies have put our nation’s most vulnerable children at grave risk, corrupting the nation’s premier child welfare agency and distorting its core mission to secure the safety and promote the best interests of the children and communities served by its programs,” Wyden wrote to Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Assistant Secretary Alex Adams. “It is now your sworn responsibility to carry out policies that keep every single child in this country safe and to guarantee their utmost wellbeing. Inaction risks allowing ongoing harm to children, undermining child safety, and further hollowing out child welfare programs for political gain. I will monitor your actions in each of these areas closely to ensure that all children served by ACF are treated with dignity and care.”
During the Senate Finance Committee confirmation process, Wyden pressed Adams to commit to policies that result in children being cared for in the least restrictive setting that meets their needs, reduce the time children spend in restrictive environments, and provide children with access to fair legal representation. Additionally, Wyden urged Adams to ensure unaccompanied migrant children are protected while they are in government custody under the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
The policy priorities Wyden highlighted in his letter to Adams include investing in community-based settings to care for kids, supporting kinship caregivers, protecting LGBTQIA+ youth, ending Head Start funding delays, and halting the mistreatment of unaccompanied children and agency’s facilitation of Trump’s deportation agenda.
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Serving Kids in Community Whenever Possible: In June 2024, the Senate Committee on Finance released a two-year investigation into four residential treatment facilities (RTFs), finding the risk of harm to children is endemic to the model. Based on Adams last conversation with Wyden, he called this report the “Rosetta Stone,” affirming that these lessons should be at the forefront while implementing community-based care.
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Strengthening Support for Kinship Caregivers: Children placed with kin families have better outcomes and these placements annually save America more than $10 billion by keeping children out of the foster care system. Wyden urged ACF to streamline processes for placing children with kinship caregivers, funding evidence-based methods to promote a Family First agenda, and providing these unsung heroes with the financial support needed.
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Keeping LGBTQIA+ Youth in Safe and Affirming Homes: An overwhelming amount of evidence underscores that LGBTQIA+ children are overrepresented in the child welfare system and experience worse outcomes, including abuse, neglect, and mental health challenges. Wyden urged Adams to stop the Trump administration’s witch hunt on LGBTQIA+ youth by ensuring that all children are afforded with basic dignity, humanity, and value.
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Guaranteeing Consistent Funding and Support to Head Start Programs: While Head Start programs provide critical education, childcare, and nutritional support to hundreds of thousands of children, Trump has created unacceptable and illegal delays by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in funding between January and April 2025. Wyden called on Adams to ensure Head Start programs receive all congressionally appropriated funding and do not encounter further delays in light of the government reopening.
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Ensuring that ORR Remains a Child Welfare Agency and Protects the Well-Being of Unaccompanied Children: ORR is responsible for the care and custody of unaccompanied children who often flee from abuse, neglect, and trafficking from their home countries. Since taking office, the Trump administration has implemented policies to endanger these children’s safety, including threatening legal representation programs and sharing sensitive information with immigration enforcement agencies. Wyden demanded an end to coercive efforts to terrorize, pressure, or deport unaccompanied children and their sponsors. He urged Adams to implement a community-based system of care for unaccompanied migrant children in ORR custody.
Wyden has served as a leader in the Senate on protecting the welfare of children across America. In September 2024, he urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the ACF to protect kids in RTFs from taxpayer funded child abuse. In November 2023, he introduced legislation to create alternatives to incarceration for parents and caregivers so families are kept together and children are not placed into foster care. In February 2025, Wyden demanded that ORR stop any improper sharing of sensitive information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that would undermine the care of unaccompanied children and risk prolonged detention of children and family separation.
Full text of the letter is here.
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