Blogging on the Powwow

Well, here I am folks. I leave Washington tomorrow, bound for some much-needed time at home over the holidays. It's hard to believe that I am already one-third of the way through my Congressional fellowship. I spend most days feeling like I don't know what's going on around me and that I don't know anything . Then I remind myself of how much more I know now, than I did in September. True, that, but it's difficult to stay focused on that truth, when so many unknowns are zipping by my head daily, if not hourly. Here's a brief mention of the things that I have learned, but I suspect that I'm going to learn a "whole lot" more (not sure that is quantifiable) when the 115th Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2017. What impresses me most about working among Congressional staffers is that they get stuff done.  In my normal academic life, as a professor of social policy and research methods, I read or hear about things that are troubling and think, "

Congress has been in session for the last two weeks. I'm getting exposed to increasingly more of the procedures, rules, and customs of Congress with every day that passes. I still only understand about twenty-five percent of what I encounter, but that's better than the ten percent where I started. I've been paying close attention to a specific bill that's been trying to move through Congress: the  Family First Prevention and Services Act . This bill, if passed, would accomplish two primary things in child welfare: (1) federal dollars only kick in to support children in the child welfare system once they enter foster care; this bill would make it possible to fund services for families before placing a child in foster care, if it is safe to do so; and (2) it emphasizes using group home placements as a last resort, instead prioritizing the child's family of origin, then kinship foster care, and then foster care, before placing a child in a group home. The Family First