Cash Assistance and Foster Care - Legislative Review

Legislative Review

SB1108 modernizes Cash Assistance (CA) for children in foster care. These changes help relatives and close family friends care for children in the child welfare system.

Who’s Eligible

Special eligibility rules apply in Cash Assistance cases to assist relatives and others to provide a stable placement for children in foster care.

What’s New

Eligibility is extended to children in the legal custody of an Arizona Tribal court or child welfare agency and placed in unlicensed foster care with a relative.

Grandma Penalty

The law furthers the work of last year's "Grandma Penalty" bill, which removed the exclusion from Cash Assistance for children in the care of non-parent relatives.

This law removes the exclusion from Cash Assistance for children placed in unlicensed foster care with an unrelated adult, such as a god-parent or close family friend.

By Brett Bezio