In a year and a half, the State of Ohio will fully implement the federal Family First Act, which sets forth major federal child welfare reforms.
In partnership with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, we are immersed in implementation visioning which is now transitioning to implementation planning. The greatest opportunity the Family First Act provides Ohio is access to federal funding to support evidence-based family preservation-focused programs.
Programs that other states plan to implement per the Act include Multi-Systemic Therapy, Functional Family Therapy, Trauma-Focused CBT, ARC, Child-Parent Psychotherapy, EMDR, Motional Interviewing, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, START, Teaching Family Model, and High Fidelity Wraparound. Learn more about other state approaches here. An Ohio committee of community leaders and experts are developing Ohio’s “Prevention Plan”, complete with our list of priority prevention programs and a financing structure.
To assist states to maximize the Family First Act opportunities and the new service standards for residential treatment, Congress passed legislation last December that appropriates $500 million which will be divided among all states, with Ohio slated to receive $18.2 million later this year. We are already working closely with state officials to produce a recommended spending plan for this one-time source of funding.