The Administration for Children and Families, more commonly referred to as ACF, is a federal government agency operating within the United States Department of Health and Human Services that's primarily responsible for pursuing and supporting programs that are intended for children, youth and families.
The grants and initiatives of the ACF are all specifically designed to achieve its main agency mission which is to "establish a strong commitment to working with vulnerable populations including people with developmental disabilities, refugees, and migrants, to address their needs, strengths, and abilities."
In accordance with this mission, the Administration for Children and Families has recently established the Early Education Partnerships to Expand Protective Factors for Children with Child Welfare Involvement Program.
The primary objective of the program is to solicit applications intending to conduct projects designed to improve the socio-emotional and behavioral well-being of infants, young children, and their families, through collaborative service delivery.
In addition, the program also aims to build infrastructure capacity between State, local, or tribal child welfare agencies and early childhood systems in an attempt to ascertain that children and infants who are at-risk of entering into foster care will constantly have the access to comprehensive, high-quality early care and education services.
Essentially, the initiatives of the program are focused on a range of children across the welfare spectrum which includes children who are at-risk of being reported to child welfare, have already been reported to child welfare, are currently within child welfare custody, reside in in-home care, out-of-home care, or children who are receiving post-adoption services.
Ultimately, the activities covered under this program can create and develop new models or replicate existing models of collaborative policies, procedures, and/or practices for identifying and addressing the early care and educational needs of its target population.
To support the activities of the Early Education Partnerships to Expand Protective Factors for Children with Child Welfare Involvement Program, the Administration for Children and Families is set to administer funds in the amount of $2,500,000.
The institutions and organizations who will be deemed eligible to submit an application under this program are the following:
a) State governments
b) County governments
c) City or township governments
d) Independent school districts
e) Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
f) Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
g) Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
h) Nonprofit organizations
i) Small businesses
j) For-profit organizations other than small businesses
