Family Connection Discretionary Grants

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Children's Bureau, announces the availability of competitive grant funds authorized by the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-351). The purpose of this funding announcement is to help children who are in or are at-risk of entering into foster care reconnect with family members by developing and implementing grant programs in the areas of kinship navigator programs; programs utilizing intensive family-finding efforts to locate biological family and reestablish relationships; programs utilizing family group decision-making meetings; or residential family treatment programs. Under this Program Announcement applicants will submit proposals for one, or any combination of, the aforementioned four inter-related grant program areas, which comprise elements of a strong system of services to support family connections. Applicants must clearly state for which of these four program areas, or which combination of program areas, they are applying, and must justify their selection of program area(s) in terms of documented needs associated with specified project goals and objectives. As demonstration projects, grantees will develop these programs as identifiable sites that other States/locales seeking to implement family connection services for this population can look to for guidance, insight, and possible replication. Applicants should note that the authorizing legislation specifies the following: -- Initial Federal award levels will decline and non-Federal share match levels will increase in the third year of the three-year grant period, as required by %901 427(d) of the Act; and -- No more than 50% of the non-federal share may be in kind, as required by %901 427(e) of the Act.