in effect
Executive Order 14359, signed November 13, 2025, directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to modernize the foster care system and create new support programs for people who are currently in or aging out of foster care. It establishes a formal initiative called “Fostering the Future” and assigns coordinating roles to the First Lady’s office and the White House Faith Office.
Within 180 days, HHS must update regulations to improve how states collect and publish child-welfare data, promote AI and predictive-analytics tools for matching children with caregivers, and begin publishing an annual state-by-state scorecard tracking outcomes like time in care, placement stability, and caregiver recruitment. HHS must also establish the “Fostering the Future” initiative, which includes an online platform to help foster youth navigate available federal, state, and local services such as housing, healthcare, and employment programs. Education and Training Vouchers — federal funds usable for post-secondary education — must be made more flexible to cover short-term and credential-based programs. HHS is further directed to redirect unspent funds that states return from foster-care transition programs back into education, job training, and financial literacy programs. Additionally, HHS must act to remove barriers that prevent faith-based organizations from participating in federally funded child-welfare programs due to their religious beliefs.
Children and young adults in the foster care system, and those who have recently aged out of it, are the primary intended beneficiaries through expanded services, better placement outcomes, and new educational and employment resources. Foster and adoptive families — including those affiliated with religious organizations — may see changes in eligibility and recruitment practices at the state level as HHS pressures states to stop excluding faith-based providers from federally funded programs. State child-welfare agencies face new data-reporting expectations, an annual scorecard measuring their performance, and federal guidance to modernize their information systems.