A Home for Every Child Innovation Challenge | Idaho Department of Health and Welfare

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is launching the A Home for Every Child Innovation Challenge. This competition offers prizes to the states that make the biggest improvement in their foster home-to-child ratio in one year.

This challenge is part of ACF’s national "A Home for Every Child" initiative, which works to make sure there are enough foster homes for every child in need. The goal is to reward the states that bring in more foster families so that homes are waiting for children, rather than children waiting for homes.

By offering these prizes, ACF aims to inspire states to find new, creative ways to recruit and keep foster families. Ultimately, these system improvements will help children find safe, stable, and permanent homes faster.

Currently, for every 100 children entering foster care, only 57 licensed foster homes are available nationwide. This critical shortage means children spending nights in office buildings and shelters, teenagers shuttled between hotels, and siblings separated not for safety, but for lack of space.

A Home for Every Child sets an ambitious goal of achieving a foster home-to-child ratio greater than 1:1 in every state.

The Challenge

Challenge Period: October 1, 2026 — September 30, 2027

Winner Announced (Estimated): November 2027

State child welfare agencies will compete to show the most significant positive change in the availability of foster homes relative to the number of children in their foster care systems. This program tackles the issue from both sides. It aims to create more safe foster homes by actively finding new families, placing children with kin whenever possible, and supporting current foster parents. At the same time, it works to keep children safely out of foster care in the first place through effective prevention and faster pathways to permanency.

This initiative builds on ideas that are already working in several states, and will include monthly reporting under the Child and Family Service Review (CFSR) pilot announced in CFSR Technical Bulletin #14

Prizes

ACF will award up to $7,000,000, distributed as follows to four winners:

First Prize: $3,000,000 (highest home-to-child ratio)
Second Prize: $2,000,000 (second highest home-to-child ratio)
Third Prize: $2,000,000 (two states with the most improved home-to-child ratios from the beginning to end of the challenge period; if the states are the same as the first and second prize winners, ACF will award to the next state on the list of most improvement)

For more information and challenge rules, visit the ACF Home For Every Child Innovation Website.