The Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) is a federal law that provides funding to states to support evidence-based programs that prevent child abuse and neglect.
Passed as an amendment to Parts B and E of Title IV of the Social Security Act in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, the Family First Prevention Services Act was a response to the growing body of research on the importance of early intervention in preventing child maltreatment and the political inconvenience of family separation. Like with foster care, funding for evidence-based FFPSA-approved prevention services paid for by state and municipal child protective services are subsidized through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act and are intended to prevent family separation in cases of child abuse and neglect. The law also requires state child protective services to use a risk-assessment tool to identify families who may need services.
The Family First Prevention Services Act is based on the premise that it is better to prevent child maltreatment from happening in the first place than to try to repair the damage after it has occurred, which is a good thing. These programs are typically home-based and include various forms of individual, group and family psychotherapy, parenting education, domestic violence counseling, vocational counseling, case management, family support services are more. There exists a list of prevention services approved for funding under the Family First Prevention Services Act- known as the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse. Some services are placed on the list provisionally, as their effectiveness in preventing child abuse and neglect is in the process of being studied.
When CPS identifies safety concerns in a family being investigated for child abuse or neglect, they may offer prevention services. If the family is consents or is ordered by the court, CPS matches the family with a prevention services provider (either CPS or a non-profit CPS-contracted agency) based on availability- hopefully addressing the safety concern (or concerns) as identified and interpreted by CPS. Then, paperwork is submitted to the government requesting reimbursement under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. Once approved, a prevention services provider is assigned and a joint home visit with the service provider, the family and CPS is conducted to introduce the service provider and the family.
The prevention services are implemented and may continue for an unspecified period of time, which could be anywhere from a few months to a few years or more. These services are paid for by Child Protective Services and are entirely taxpayer funded. While these services are framed as voluntary or optional, that’s dependent on what CPS finds. If they have found enough evidence of child abuse or neglect to substantiate a case, they may either get a court order compelling your compliance or remove your child(ren) if you refuse. If they do not find enough evidence to substantiate your case, you can refuse with no penalty; however, expect CPS to try very hard to persuade you.
While the Family First Prevention Services Act is a major step forward in efforts to prevent child maltreatment and reduce family separations, it falls far short of addressing the problems it claims to solve. The evidence-based services covered by the Family First Prevention Services Act and desire to keep families together are both positive, but the providers of these prevention services are government contractors or CPS employees. When private non-profit agencies provide prevention services under contract to CPS, these contracts are signed between private non-profit agencies and executives in your local government child protective service under the authority of the executive branch of your state or local government. When CPS employees provide prevention services directly, this cost is covered by similar contracts with the public sector unions that represent them. This makes them political in nature and subject to partisan politics, election pressures and favors. You may also find that the terms and conditions mean prevention services providers are allowed to share confidential information with child protective services by making your consent part of your overall consent to services. This is something most families miss.
This creates a remarkably close tie to child protective services in the home for a long duration with questionable motives at play. Very often, there is an incredibly low threshold used in making a subsequent report for a minor issue. This relationship is also not always disclosed to families, which can lead to uninformed decisions made by families when selecting care. Instead of helping families by providing the services they need at no cost, the Family First Prevention Services Act moves CPS into the home to make sure parents are behaving according to the standards set by CPS. Until the tether of prevention services providers to CPS is addressed, families will continue to see prevention services as an extension of CPS. While the Family First Prevention Services Act has the right idea in its effort to preserve families and put child protective services in more of a position to help, its execution increases concerns for more child protective services involvement and surveillance, while holding parents to an unreasonable standard: perfection.