Beginning Feb. 15, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in Idaho can no longer be used to purchase candy or soda.

This change follows recent legislative action and aligns with similar steps being taken by several other states this year. The goal is to support healthier food choices while continuing to ensure access to nutritious foods for individuals and families who rely on SNAP.

What’s changing

Starting Feb. 15:

• Candy will no longer be an eligible SNAP purchase.
• Soda and other sugar-sweetened soft drinks will no longer be eligible SNAP purchases.

SNAP benefits can still be used to buy a wide range of nutritious foods, including:

• Fruits and vegetables
• Meat, poultry, and fish
• Dairy products
• Bread, cereals, rice, and pasta
• Seeds and plants that produce food

Why this change is being made

The intent of this change is to support improved health outcomes, particularly for children and families.

SNAP is designed to help households access food that supports overall health and well-being. Limiting purchases of items with limited nutritional value—such as candy and soda—reflects a growing focus on nutrition and prevention across public assistance programs nationwide.

Idaho is not alone. Several other states have adopted similar SNAP policy changes in 2025, reflecting a broader national conversation about nutrition, health, and long-term outcomes.

What this means for SNAP customers

Changes to food purchasing rules can raise questions. DHW’s goal is to ensure SNAP customers:

• Have clear, advance notice of changes
• Continue to have access to nutritious and affordable food options
• Can plan ahead for shopping and household needs

Retailers that accept SNAP will update their systems to reflect the new eligibility rules.

Where to find more information

We encourage SNAP customers and community partners to review the latest updates on our SNAP webpage. These pages will continue to be updated with information and resources as needed.

DHW’s commitment

The Department of Health and Welfare remains committed to supporting the health and well-being of Idahoans. SNAP continues to be a critical program that helps families put food on the table, and we will continue working to provide clear information, resources, and support throughout this transition.

If you have questions about SNAP eligibility or benefits, please visit our website or contact your local DHW office.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is dedicated to strengthening the health, safety, and independence of Idahoans. Learn more at healthandwelfare.idaho.gov.

Recent news from other states has highlighted serious cases of fraud and abuse in child care subsidy programs. These stories have raised understandable concerns about how public funds are protected and how children are kept safe.

In Idaho, ensuring program integrity, accountability, and compliance in the Child Care Program is a top priority.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) has intensified its efforts to prevent, detect, and address fraud, waste, and abuse — while continuing to support child care providers who serve families responsibly and ethically across the state.

A focus on compliance

DHW has long maintained processes to identify and address fraud across all benefit programs, including child care. In the past, the department has:

• Identified cases of non-compliance and fraud
• Referred cases for prosecution when appropriate
• Recovered misspent funds

However, until recently, existing staffing levels only allowed the department to conduct annual reviews of about 25% of participating child care providers. That level of oversight is not sufficient. We have a responsibility to Idaho taxpayers, families, and children to do better.

A 360-degree review of all providers

In early January, investigative staff were redirected to launch a comprehensive, 360-degree compliance review of all 775 providers participating in Idaho’s Child Care Program.

This effort includes:

• On-site inspections of designated providers, which includes a review of documents
• Off-site audits (also called desk audits) of designated providers
• Review of billing, attendance, and program requirements
• Immediate action when potential fraud or serious non-compliance is identified
• Ten full-time staff conducting these reviews statewide

Progress to date

Reviews began in mid-January and are targeted for completion by mid-March. As of early February:

• 244 on-site visits have been completed; document review is ongoing
• 100 notices have been sent for off-site reviews
• 9 providers have been terminated
• 25 providers are receiving additional scrutiny and may face further action

When providers are found out of compliance, DHW takes appropriate action — up to and including payment suspension, program termination, and referral for prosecution.

Supporting providers who do the right thing

To be clear: most Idaho child care providers are doing the right thing.

They provide safe, reliable care for children and support working families and communities across Idaho. DHW values their dedication and hard work, and this compliance effort is not meant to create unnecessary burden for providers who are following the rules.

Strong oversight protects both families and ethical providers by ensuring a fair, trustworthy system.

Building sustainable oversight

To ensure 100% of providers can be reviewed annually moving forward, DHW has asked the Idaho Legislature for five additional staff positions dedicated to compliance and oversight in the Child Care Program. This investment would allow DHW to:

• Maintain full annual reviews
• Identify issues earlier
• Strengthen public trust
• Protect taxpayer dollars and children

The department looks forward to working with Idaho policymakers to continue strengthening this program.

Ongoing updates and how to report concerns

DHW will continue sharing regular updates on this work to promote transparency and accountability.

If you are aware of potential fraud, waste, or abuse in any DHW program, please report it. Every referral is reviewed.

Together, these efforts help ensure Idaho’s Child Care Program remains safe, responsible, and focused on serving children and families as intended.

• For more information, please read the letter we sent to Idaho lawmakers last week in response to their questions about the Idaho Child Care Program. 

Juliet Charron is director of the Department of Health and Welfare since September 2025. She served as the Idaho Medicaid administrator starting in November 2021 and was promoted to deputy director in June 2024. Prior to her move to Idaho, she held leadership positions with the Texas Medicaid program and the Texas Office of Inspector General.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is dedicated to strengthening the health, safety, and independence of Idahoans. Learn more at healthandwelfare.idaho.gov.

With the snip of oversized scissors and an outpouring of community support, a ribbon fell in late November at Idaho’s newest psychiatric residential treatment facility. The opening of Headwaters Behavioral Health Center in Idaho Falls marked more than a ceremonial milestone; it represented the realization of a multi-year effort to bring intensive mental health care for children and adolescents back to Idaho.

The facility is one of three psychiatric residential treatment facilities, also called PRTFs, established statewide after Gov. Brad Little included $15 million in his 2022 budget to address a longstanding gap in Idaho’s behavioral health system. The funding, approved by the Idaho Legislature that same year, was designed to create inpatient psychiatric services for children and youth that were not previously available in Idaho.

The Department of Health and Welfare awarded grants to three partners capable of serving different regions of the state: Idaho Youth Ranch in southwest Idaho, Northwest Children’s Home in north Idaho, and Jackson House in east Idaho. Jackson House operates the Headwaters Behavioral Health Center. 

During the ribbon-cutting event in November, Jackson House President and CEO Bruce Figuered spoke about the urgent demand for youth mental health services across the state. He noted that Idaho’s youth suicide rate is 46.8%, higher than the national average.

Before the creation of PRTFs in Idaho, approximately 100 children each year were sent out of state to receive this level of care — often far from their families and communities. State leaders and stakeholders identified the lack of in-state inpatient psychiatric treatment as a critical gap in the continuum of care.

“This level of mental healthcare did not exist in Idaho, so these three facilities are filling a critical gap in our continuum of care for children and youth,” said DHW Behavioral Health Administrator Ross Edmunds. “Previously, around 100 kids were getting treatment in other states because we didn’t have these services available in Idaho.”

Headwaters Behavioral Health Center is designed to serve up to 40 adolescents ages 12 to 17. The program emphasizes structure, consistency, and active engagement in treatment.

Headwaters Program Director Lex Fanopoulous said the center’s therapeutic model will incorporate a variety of treatment methods including individual and group therapy, and nursing and medication support. He said treatment plans will be individualized and may include de-prescribing medications when appropriate.

Edmunds emphasized that community involvement was crucial to establishing Idaho’s approach.

After the Legislature approved funding, DHW conducted stakeholder engagement sessions across the state. Participants emphasized patient safety, asked about age limitations and prioritization of Idaho youth, and raised questions about coordination with neighboring states.

With that feedback, an application process involving multiple state agencies led to the selection of the three providers now operating PRTFs in Idaho.

“DHW is confident these strong partnerships will further Idaho’s ability to serve children with complex mental health diagnoses in Idaho,” Edmunds said. “This will also reduce the need for children to leave the state for care we simply didn’t offer.”

With the facilities operated by Idaho Youth Ranch and Northwest Children’s Home already underway, the opening of Headwaters Behavioral Health Center completes the three-facility vision first outlined by the Idaho Behavioral Health Council.

Headwaters Behavioral Health Center began serving youth on Jan. 1.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is dedicated to strengthening the health, safety, and independence of Idahoans. Learn more at healthandwelfare.idaho.gov.

A crisp, clear winter evening welcomed more than 200 Idaho foster, kinship, and adoptive family members to Eagle Island State Park on Jan. 24 for Fostering Family Adventures, an event that paired outdoor fun with connection, learning, and reflection.

After nearly a week of socked-in weather in the Treasure Valley, the skies cleared just in time. As the sun dipped low, golden light spilled across the park, casting long shadows over the snow while children zipped down the sledding hill, laughing and cheering. 

Nearby, families gathered around fire pits, roasting marshmallows, sipping hot chocolate, and warming their hands as the temperature dropped and the stars began to appear.

The evening brought families together for snow tubing, s’mores, hot chocolate, coloring activities, winter-themed history stations tied to America’s 250th anniversary, and the Junior Ranger program led by the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation. 

“Events like this create space for children and caregivers to just be families,” said DHW Family and Community Partnerships Administrator Laura Denner. “When kids feel joy, safety, and belonging, it reinforces why community support for foster and kinship families matters so much.”

The winter setting offered more than recreation. History-focused activities encouraged curiosity and conversation, weaving learning into the evening alongside sled tracks and sticky fingers from marshmallows.

Fostering Family Adventures is a cooperative effort led by the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Health and Welfare, with key financial and logistical support from Idaho Business for the Outdoors. 

Additional partners for the Eagle Island event included Regence BlueShield of Idaho, Cabela’s, the Idaho State Historical Society, Capital City Kiwanis, Gateway Parks & Trails, and other local contributors.

Idaho needs foster parents

Idaho continues to need foster families willing to provide safe, supportive homes for children. Those interested in fostering can learn more by calling 211 or visiting the Department of Health and Welfare’s foster care webpage. Even providing care for one child for one season can make a meaningful difference.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is dedicated to strengthening the health, safety, and independence of Idahoans. Learn more at healthandwelfare.idaho.gov.

Jesse and Hailey are Idaho foster parents who understand firsthand how complicated families can be. In fact, it’s something they both grew up with.

Hailey’s childhood home was often full. Her siblings mixed with extended family members and foster youth her mother cared for, sometimes swelling to a dozen children on weekends.

Jesse’s upbringing looked different but was no less complicated. He grew up in a home that was often broken, and he knows that, under slightly different circumstances, he could have entered foster care himself.

Along the way, he gathered a group of mother figures who “represented different seasons” of his life. All four sat in the front row at his and Hailey’s wedding.

These experiences shaped how they see children and families — especially those navigating instability, loss, and change.

“I have the perspective of what it's like … you know, adolescence, and to not have a stable environment, or a predictable kind of loving environment,” Jesse said.

(Follow this link to watch a video about Jesse an Hailey’s experiences as foster parents.)

Stability and predictability are central goals of foster care, but they don’t come easily. Youth who’ve experienced upheaval may struggle in school or display big behaviors as they learn to trust again. Jesse remembers how the steady adults in his own life helped guide him, even during unstable years. Today, as a foster dad, he sees his role as returning that gift to others.

The couple has taken in youth, and even opened their home to a single mother and her children for several years.

“Now they are family to us,” Jesse said.

Hailey said she sees the long arc of care clearly, in part because of her own mother’s example. Her mom sometimes wondered whether the many children who passed through their home were truly helped. Hailey recently shared a moment that answered those questions.

One foster youth Hailey’s mother had cared for recently called and told her: “‘I want you to know that I'm alive today because you loved me, because you showed up,’”

Service has always been central to Jesse and Hailey’s family life, long before foster care became part of their story, and it’s something they work to instill in the children in their care.

“We definitely know that our destiny in life is to add value to others,” Jesse said. “And the best life to live is a life when you're in service. So it's something we communicate to our kids. Like, you can live your life for yourself, but you'll end up empty, but if you live your life serving others, it is just more rewarding.”

Their commitment has brought full hearts and a full home — with room still to grow.

Their message to others is simple and direct: “You have this opportunity to take a kid and completely change that person's life,” Jesse said. “And it may work out, or it may not, but you should try.”

Not everyone can be a foster parent, but everyone can help. Supporting youth can mean donating supplies, offering time, or showing up in smaller but meaningful ways.

And for those who can live with uncertainty — who can accept that a child they cared for six months in their early teens may or may not remember them, may never call, may never look back — foster care may be worth considering. You might be a parent figure for a season, for a year, or for a lifetime.

Sometimes, that’s enough to change everything.

Idaho needs foster parents

If you’ve ever considered fostering, know that your willingness to offer a home—even for one child for one season—can change a child’s life forever. For more information, call 2-1-1 or visit the Department of Health and Welfare’s foster care page. You could be the difference that turns a story of struggle into one of hope and belonging.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is dedicated to strengthening the health, safety, and independence of Idahoans. Learn more at healthandwelfare.idaho.gov.

For years, the Department of Health and Welfare has collected detailed information through its child welfare case management system, capturing the history and progress of thousands of cases across Idaho. Lance McCleve, bureau chief for Youth Safety and Permanency, has been leading a project to better use that information to help children move more quickly into safe, permanent homes.

“When kids are in the child protection system, we want to make sure that they’re in the system for as little time as possible and that they can get to a permanent placement as soon as possible,” McCleve said. “And the more information we have to be able to help them along their way, the better.”

The challenge was not a lack of data, but efficiently accessing that data. Much of the information exists as narrative case notes and documents that are difficult to analyze at scale.

To address that challenge, McCleve’s team explored how artificial intelligence could be used behind the scenes to synthesize historical information — while maintaining strict protections for Idahoans’ personal data. He shared about the project in a recent video published by the Idaho Office of Information Technology Services. 

The project used existing Microsoft Dynamics and Azure services, and all extracted data was anonymized before being processed.

AI was never intended to replace professional judgment. Human review and validation were required at every step to ensure accuracy.

“What we’re using it for is a decision help, not a decision maker,” McCleve said. “So it gets our case workers the kind of information that they need quickly to be able to make the decisions that used to take a long time.”

The project focused on identifying 52 nationally recognized indicators across about 2,000 historical cases — a task that used to take staff four hours per case to complete manually. That would have taken four staff an entire year to complete.  Using AI, the entire case record can be analyzed in about 30 minutes. 

“So it basically made some things that were impossible possible for us,” McCleve said.

During statewide training, staff began applying the findings to real cases and saw immediate value.

“What they were finding is that those indicators helped clarify what next steps were needed to get kids home quicker,” McCleve said.

Looking ahead, McCleve sees the project as both a proof of concept and a promise.

“If I could describe the future of AI for the department in one word,” he said, “hopeful.”

Watch the Office of Information Technology Services video featuring McCleve, DHW Director Juliet Charron, DHW Deputy Director Monty Prow, and others who work in state government discuss the use of AI in their work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5QC97ImWs0

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is dedicated to strengthening the health, safety, and independence of Idahoans. Learn more at healthandwelfare.idaho.gov.