'Permanent, Irreversible Harm': How Trump is Protecting Parents From Losing Kids to Transgenderism

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[00:00:00]I'm with HHS assistant secretary for the administration of children and families, Alex Adams. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.

[00:00:06]>> Glad to be here.

[00:00:07]>> First, let's talk about your program, A Home for Every Child. What is this and what are you hoping to accomplish?

[00:00:13]>> Yeah, well, I would start in November when President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump issued an executive order called Fostering the Future. What that did, it's it set up a whole of government approach to improving child welfare outcomes across multiple agencies. Treasury is involved. Office personnel management is involved.

[00:00:29]Housing and Urban Development is involved. And then HHS has a role to play as well. At the Administration for Children and Families, the largest thing we're doing responsive to the executive order is a home for every child campaign. What we mean by that is we have too few foster homes nationwide. If I have 100 foster kids coming into the system, we only have 57 homes to care for them. And when we have that gap, kids end up in non-traditional settings.

[00:00:52]end up in government offices, hotels, Airbnbs, things that are not conducive to long-term child outcomes. So, we're trying to increase the ratio of homes to kids. And there's two ways to do that.

[00:01:04]You can either prevent kids coming into foster care in the first place. That's the most important thing you can do. As President Trump said, the best foster care system is one that is not needed.

[00:01:13]So, we're trying to prevent entry, wrap around families, keep families together, and prevent the trauma of child removal.

[00:01:20]That's not possible in all cases. In some cases, there's always going to be significant abuse. So, when children come in to the foster care system in those cases, we're trying to ensure they're safe, loving family homes for them and recruiting more and retaining more homes is going to be really important.

[00:01:37]>> What states have joined so far? And are there states on the horizon that you see joining as well?

[00:01:43]>> Certainly. Yeah. So, we've only been at this for about a 100 days, but we already have 15 jurisdictions that have joined, 14 states and the District of Columbia. So both red and blue states, you know, states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, then blue states, Kansas, Maryland, uh, District of Columbia, etc. So, uh, we've seen bipartisan momentum around this, which really speaks to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump building an initiative that transcends party lines.

[00:02:10]>> Are there more states in the near future who think are going to be signing on?

[00:02:13]>> There are. you know, we we could have uh have an embarrassment of riches and we've had so much interest from states uh that uh we've we've been backlogged in getting all of it processed and negotiating uh the parameters because when a state joins M for every child, it's not just a marketing slogan. What it means is the state is updating their program improvement plan on file with federal government. We're giving them record red tape relief. We're saying you don't have to file 300page reports with us because we want to free up your case workers to spend time with families and children and prevent foster care entries and handle uh licensing requests and all of that stuff. In exchange though, the state has to commit to reporting data to us monthly. We've never had that before.

[00:02:56]Most child welfare data gets reported to us a year after the fact and by the time it's on our website, it's two years out of date. I don't know any leading business in this country that makes data driven decisions based on data that's two years out of date. So the bet we're making with states is we'll get off your back. We'll cut red tape. We'll give your case workers more time. But in exchange, I want more timely data so we can see who's doing well and who's not doing well. So starting this summer, we'll have at least 15 states who are reporting their ratio of homes to kids along with some chaser measures to demonstrate they're doing it the right way. I said, I want a website somehat like a power rankings website for college football. These 15 states, who's doing best? Is it Louisiana? Is it Oklahoma? Who's doing worse? And I think, you know, kind of the name and shame roll will go a lot further than a lot of the, you know, red tape and hoop jumping of of previous administrations.

[00:03:50]Other states are absolutely going to join. Uh we're currently in discussions with more than 10. Uh but our goal frankly at the beginning of this administration was 10 states joining this pilot and we've already exceeded that. So again I think that's a testament to the momentum that the Trump administration has created.

[00:04:06]>> Can you get all 50 states on board do you think by the end of the administration?

[00:04:09]>> You know ultimately these are state decisions. States are going to have to decide what is in their uh best interest. Do they want to continue filling out reports and draining their caseworker time and energy and not reporting data timely to the federal government? you know, there might be a state here or there that decides that's in their best interest. I haven't found them yet. I would say in uh all of the the states that we've talked to, we've found uh quite a bit of energy and excitement behind this. And I think we're going to cross the tipping point of more than half of all states very soon here in the next couple uh of weeks to to months and I think that will set up a tipping point where we will get most if not all states.

[00:04:47]>> That's great. Y you had a video a few months ago talking about some of these situations in which there are kids going into foster care where they could remain with their families where the family maybe because of their religious affiliation doesn't affirm the child saying that they're transgender CPS takes that child puts them in the foster care system. You said that there's things that you're doing at HHS to make sure that this isn't happening. Families aren't getting separated because of gender identity. Could you talk a little bit about what you're doing to stop those cases from happening? We saw that showcased at the state of the union with Sage Blair who was taken away from her family like how big is a problem is this and what can be done about it?

[00:05:25]>> Yeah. Well, one one case is is too many.

[00:05:27]Um we are trying to prevent foster care entry uh period. When a child is removed from a family, you are inflicting permanent irreversible harm on both the child as well as the the parents. That's not a decision that should be made lightly. It should be reserved to the most significant cases of abuse or neglect as judged by a court. Uh it should not be a precipitating factor for foster care and for tree uh because a state child welfare agency has different values than a parent. A state child welfare agency uh should respect the uh sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions of family. that no child should enter foster care uh because of uh differences in values like that. So, we sent a letter to all states telling them that under federal uh funding for CAPA uh which is one of the the the grant programs that we push out to state child welfare systems that it is not neglect or abuse and that states should affirmatively uh clarify that as part of their laws.

[00:06:31]We're attacking this from multiple different angles. We're preventing uh children coming into the foster care system because of differences of opinion of sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions of families, but we're also attacking this uh from a foster parent angle as well. Uh, too many states have put in place uh requirements that foster families need to commit to affirming uh certain pronouns of children in their custody, that foster parents might have to commit to certain medical procedures, and that's deterring families of faith from stepping forward from fostering as well. So, we're attacking it both from entry and then from a placement decision. Uh, we've seen uh some movement. We'd sent letters to 13 states on their licensing policies. two states already committed to change those policies and we're going to continue to try to work with the 11 remaining uh to do so because as I said we have too few foster families nationwide only have 57 foster families for every hundred kids coming in. The message that we send to families of faith will either make or break state child welfare systems.

[00:07:34]>> Which states agreed to change their policies and then what's the situation with the remaining ones who haven't committed? Yeah. So, Vermont had sent us a letter uh that uh they were looking at their policies and committed to changing them and then Massachusetts had enacted an emergency rule. Um I will say, you know, we we uh thanked Massachusetts, but uh said we would trust but verify and I think we'll follow their actions diligently to see if their actions match uh their statements and that emergency rule. uh for the remaining 11, you know, I I I would say we're continuing to have dialogue and continuing to have a discussion internally with other units within HHS about what the most appropriate next steps would be.

[00:08:14]>> Can you withhold funding from those states or what's kind of your message to those states?

[00:08:18]>> Potentially. So, I mean, if you look at the fostering the future executive order uh that President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump signed, section 4 was about engaging with faith-based communities and taking all appropriate actions necessary uh to ensure uh that states are not violating sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.

[00:08:38]So, we're going to look at all those actions, funding, regulation changes, uh all of those things are are are things that are part of the discussion. You said that you only want the fost to be taking away these kids from families where there's genuine situations of abuse that aren't going to change. In the past, parent not affirming the child's gender identity has been treated as abuse. How is the Trump administration viewing this differently?

[00:09:01]>> Yeah. So again, it it's a subsets of states uh that are are doing that. And like I said, we sent a letter to all 50 states saying uh that under federal law uh it should not meet a definition of either neglect or abuse to to violate appearance sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions around uh issues of biological reality. and no child should enter into foster care because of a difference of opinion between uh the parents and a the child welfare agency on biological reality.

[00:09:33]>> And you talked about you're looking to open up more homes. There's this amount there's more children than there are homes right now. Do you think that opening up foster care to these religious parents who might have been disqualified by their stance on on gender identity previously will really help solve this problem and create a lot more homes for these kids?

[00:09:51]>> Yeah. I mean, statistically, families of faith are more likely to raise their hand and run towards the foster care system to begin with. Um, if you just look at the numbers, if every house of worship in the country had just one family who committed to fostering, our ratio of homes to kids would be 4:1. And if we did that, we would have homes waiting on kids, not not kids waiting on homes. So, we have to be very deliberate about authentically engaging with the faith-based community. uh the messages that we send to them will either welcome them or deter them. We want to roll out the red carpet. Uh prior to this role, I was in Idaho. I ran Idaho's HHS agency.

[00:10:29]And one of the things we did there is we stood up a faith-based office, and we uh brought in dedicated personnel whose sole job was to work with the faith community, go to churches, talked from the pulpit about uh the the need in the state and what some of the benefits and the challenges were. And uh I saw firsthand how it delivered uh results.

[00:10:48]When I was in Idaho, we had 74 homes for every 100 kids. When I started when I left, we had 104 homes for every hundred kids. In between, we got congregate care down. We got kids out of group homes. We stopped putting kids in hotels and Airbnbs. I saw the outcomes improve uh rapidly. And it was a combination of things, but engaging the faith-based community was one of the most important levers we had to pull. some of the instances we've seen of these kids being taken away from their parents um because they're identifying as transgender, they're usually happening in blue states like California, are you optimistic that even these blue states that are so supportive of these types of policies can get on board with what you're doing?

[00:11:28]>> Certainly, that's the hope. I mean, again, we've seen bipartisan momentum today. We have both red states and blue states who have already joined the Home for Every Child campaign. And in the coming weeks, as I kind of previewed, we're going to be rolling out additional states. There'll be both red and blue.

[00:11:42]And I think what we're going to do uh with this is each state's going to have to report the ratio of homes to kids.

[00:11:48]And it's going to be reported in an applesto apples format. So we'll see how um Louisiana is doing compared to Missouri. We're going to see how Missouri is doing compared to Delaware.

[00:11:58]How's Delaware compared to uh other states that are participating. And I think we'll know pretty quickly. Uh I I think you'll see pretty quickly when the the the website gets set up this summer that some states have a higher ratio than others. So then the natural question is going to be why why are some states higher than others? How are states engaging their faith-based community? What policies have states put in place? How are those either facilitating or detracting from uh foster care licensing or foster care entry? And I think what we're hoping that we'll do is that will drive more polic or more evidence-based decisions around what are the appropriate policies and what's working and what's not working.

[00:12:39]>> Another thing that you've been really involved with is cutting regulation.

[00:12:43]Looks like you've cut around 36,000 pages of regulatory guidance. What's the reason for this?

[00:12:49]>> Yeah, well, you know, it backs to my days at the state level. Um, regulations rise like rockets but full leg feathers.

[00:12:57]we stand them up too quickly and we're too slow to get them off of the books.

[00:13:02]So, I've been a big proponent of what I call zerobased regulation. It's kind of a twist on zerobased budgeting where it's let's presume none of our regulations are necessary and if we were going to start from scratch, what would we actually want to regulate on? Uh so we did uh that with our subregulatory guidance. When I started, I asked around how many pages of subregulatory guidance do we have? The answer is nobody knew.

[00:13:26]So guidance documents unlike regulations operate in this kind of like gray area where um they're not inventoried.

[00:13:34]They're not all published. Some of them in the most literal sense live in just the drawers of some of the senior staff here. So we did a comprehensive inventory and then we went through each document one by one and said is this still necessary? Does this still li align with this administration's policy priorities? And we got rid of threearters of them in one swoop. In a single action, we got rid of 36,000 pages. And you haven't seen any outcomes change. You haven't heard any screaming from the heavens. It demonstrates that most of those things are completely unnecessary. They end up being guidance documents for grants that haven't existed since the Carter administration.

[00:14:12]It ends up being trit recognitions of World Water Day and other things that previous administrations might have prioritized. But let me tell you what that means to a a grant recipient. A lot of what my agency does is push out grants to states and then the states are the direct administrators coming from a state. You get these grants and then you get all of these strings attached to them. So then if if you want to use the grant in a certain way, maybe can I use this grant to help stay-at-home parents or can I use this grant in this manner, you look at the statute, you look at the regulations, and then you have to worry, is there a guidance document out there somewhere that exists only in the drawer of some bureaucrat who's been lying and wait since 1994 to say, how did you not know this technical bulletin existed? So, by getting rid of the gunk, cleaning out the gutters, what we're s doing is we're sending a message to states that um we are going to laser focus on our statutes and our rags and for the few guidance documents that remain, those are the ones that we prioritize. Those are the ones that we care about and we put them all on a central website for our grantees. You touched on this a little bit, but some people might hear about this massive deregulation at ACF and think, does this mean that kids will be in less safe environments, lower quality standards for foster homes? How would you respond to that type of concern?

[00:15:33]>> Yeah. So, um I I've always been a believer in in deregulating the right way. So when we got all of those uh subregulatory guidance documents off the books, uh we did it by hand with the program officers and the careers and we had them put in writing what their rationale was to either keep it or not keep it. And then we had circulated that within the administration so that others could take a look at that list and make sure there was nothing uh that they believed was necessary. And then we publicly posted everything that we rescended. We put out an archived website that clearly identified what was rescended so that any member of the public could relitigate that and all I've heard is is cricket. So I you know I think processes matter. I think how you you go about these matter. Um what I would say generally is um we at ACF are the financier and the overseer. almost everything we do goes through state governments and I think it's states that are much more appropriate to set a lot of these uh parameters for these grants.

[00:16:35]So you know we talked about a home for every child and with that you know um we are saying these 300page reports that were coming to us that literally nobody here read nobody read and maybe at best we ran them through J GBT to to look for oddities but those reports that we were getting was creating busy work but it wasn't creating outcomes. So the bet we're making is that by deregulating, taking away some of that tickytacky red tape, we're actually going to free up more time at the state level and then states set the laws for their foster care system. They set the laws for what licensing standards are. If we believe a state is going in the wrong direction, if we believe a state is adding red tape that's going to prevent a family of faith from stepping forward, we'll intervene in those instances. But in general, it's a trust but verify with the states.

[00:17:30]>> Is this something that you think could outlast this Trump administration where these regulations have been cut? Do you think the next administration would reinstate them or do you think this is something that will last for many years?

[00:17:40]>> Yeah. Well, certainly I think uh recent Supreme Court actions have uh dampened enthusiasm around bureaucrats who wanted to add net new regulations. Um I think uh with some of the recent Supreme Court actions, it's going to be much harder to justify regulatory actions unless they are clearly and expressly stated in statute. So by clearing out a lot of this gunk, um I I do think future administrations are going to have to pick and choose where they engage in terms of what they add back. But the other thing I would say is um like I ran four agencies at the state level. Um the only path to permanency isn't a statute change. It's not a regulatory change. It is creating something that is so well supported by the public that is difficult to rein in. The fact that only a 100 days in, we've had 15 states join this home for every child campaign and I've got states banging on our door downstairs begging to join. Um I think we're going to reach that tipping point very soon where more than half of all states are on and then I do think most if not all states will join. So the concept of red tape relief from the feds and more of an outcomebased model of reporting data to ACF more frequently for the trust but verify. I think that's going to be hard to rein in. Maybe the next administration comes in and takes the home for every child banner off the wall. But uh I I do think the concept of what we're building uh is going to be durable based on the demonstrable actions of states clamoring to join this. Something you're working on that some people might not be aware of is dealing with the orphan tax where an orphan their parents there's sort of a death tax on them where they're not receiving the money that their parents left behind maybe from social security.

[00:19:21]What is this and what are you doing to make change in this area?

[00:19:25]>> Yeah. No, I'm glad you asked. I when I was in Idaho, I ran our state child welfare system and first time I heard about this, I said it was such a cynical thing that there's no way this existed.

[00:19:36]And um what it is, as you described, a parent worked and through their work they earned social security benefits.

[00:19:43]However, the parent died before they were able to cash out those benefits. So they pass it down to their child and it might be the only support that deceased parent can leave their remaining child.

[00:19:57]In some cases, that child then enters foster care. the foster care system, the state child welfare agency is now the parent for that child. And in too many states, uh, states were saying, "Hey, that child's in our custody. We're going to take that money from them to help offset our costs, salaries, overhead, you know, transportation, foster care, maintenance payments. Those are expenses those states are incurring for every other child, but they're asking the orphans to cover it for themselves. So that's why it's called the orphan tax.

[00:20:30]States are taxing orphans at 100% of their benefits to offset government expenses. It is literally the worst of the worst government I have come across.

[00:20:40]So we sent a letter in December to the 39 states uh who he said were stealing those benefits from orphans in December.

[00:20:48]And we've had about 10 states change it uh in the legislative cycle this year.

[00:20:52]Nebraska's governor Jim Pelton signed an executive order almost immediately.

[00:20:56]Governor Landry uh signed an executive order almost immediately. Alabama adopted a regulation to to end it. Uh we've seen legislation that has passed in Utah, Idaho, Mississippi, and Kentucky. In Kentucky, Governor Basher vetoed it, but luckily the legislature in a bipartisan fashion absolutely steamrolled him and said, "We're going to stand with these orphans, not Governor Basher's bureaucrats." And um we've we've seen a lot of momentum, but as I said, there were 11 states initially. We added maybe about 10 this session. So, we're at about 21 states uh that have ended in some form or fashion the orphan tax. We've got a long way to go. We're going to keep at this and um I think it's wrong. I think it's morally wrong and we're going to use every lever available to us. We started with honey and we sent a letter to governors asking to work with them in their offices and we're probably going to build our way up to the vinegar uh side of the the house and maybe start conditioning some of our grants on it or taking other actions to demonstrate to states uh a moral wrong will never be right. Uh the one thing I would add, every governor has the ability to end this today through courage and executive action. Uh several Republican governors ended it through executive order. I would challenge, you know, Governor Walls in Minnesota to end this through executive action and others and let's do right by these orphans.

[00:22:19]>> What kind of challenges does this create for orphans when they age out of the foster care system? What kind of world are they facing because of this tax?

[00:22:27]>> Yeah. So, I mean, this is an area where first lady Melania Trump has advocated a lot for youth uh transitioning out of foster care and um they have often the worst outcomes in life. Only 3% of them complete higher education. uh depending on what period of time you look at, 20 to 25% of them might be experiencing homelessness at any point in time. So having the resources that their parents left for them might change the entire trajectory between success or failure in life. That's a down payment on a house.

[00:22:57]It's uh help with rent. It's uh education or career technical education.

[00:23:03]Uh, so we're going to look for ways to continue to preserve those resources so that when youth age out of foster care, they have the resources necessary to be successful.

[00:23:11]>> This is something that the Biden administration tried to work on as well, I believe, on the orphan tax. Kind of why do you think that those efforts were less successful and how do you believe that what you're doing is it different?

[00:23:22]Will it be more successful than what we've seen in the past to try to target this?

[00:23:25]>> We mean it. Uh, I would say the the the Biden administration put out thin grl on this and uh and basically tried to create the perception that they cared about the issue without taking any actual actions. We're traveling around to states. I'm actually going to be in a state next week uh to do an event with the governor who's going to be ending it. And you know, we're we mean what we say and uh we're we're going to uh continue to push on this. And states can even cash the disability checks of children. Is that correct? And what can be done about that?

[00:23:58]>> Yeah, so certainly some states have have uh addressed both. Uh we've been laser focused on the survivors benefit aspect of it because it was an earned benefit of the parent. Uh the disability benefit is a little bit more complicated under federal policy because if uh if you accumulate too much there, you might lose eligibility for certain benefits within title 4. It's a little bit more of a hydraulic system. So, it takes a little bit more to disentangle, which is why we focused uh heavily on the survivors benefit side right now.

[00:24:29]>> What's your message to states who have not yet done something about this orphan tax? What would you say to them in hopes that they'll change this policy?

[00:24:36]>> Yeah, a moral wrong will never be right and let's do right by these kids. If you're not uh if you're not uh asking other kids in the foster care system to cover their full freight, and you should not uh you should not be taxing your orphans, arguably your most vulnerable.

[00:24:52]And uh I think the other thing I would say is the only argument we have heard against it ends up being budget. I'm a former state budget director for six legislative sessions. I ran a state budget. Everything from uh education funding to transportation funding. There is no state budget director that I have ever come across that wants to balance their budget on the backs of orphans.

[00:25:14]Have an honest conversation with your state budget director. put a little bit of elbow grease in this and demonstrate the creativity with which I know every state budget director and child welfare director in the country can muster.

[00:25:25]>> Speaking of the budget, the president's budget came out a few weeks ago and had some specific reform suggestions for ACF for the Head Start program. Could you describe what that budget is calling for and how you're going to be playing this out if that's approved?

[00:25:41]>> Certainly. Yeah, very excited about what President Trump is doing uh with Head Start. It's part of a a broader uh child care affordability agenda for sure. If you just look at what President Trump did in the first term, signed some of the largest nominal increase in child care funding in US history, doubled child tax credit. Uh he's got an incredible record on this and we're proud to support that. Head Start is part of that broader agenda. Um with that, the president's budget uh said Head Start is too regulated federally.

[00:26:14]It's two one-sizefits-all Head Start rags come from ACF and push out to all 1600 centers regardless of where they're located. And some states might choose different parameters. Uh so the suggestion with the budget is that we work more closely with states and leverage state health and safety standards, leverage state education requirements, state ratios of uh pupil to uh to to teacher and uh work more closely with states rather than set oneizefits-all parameters. what works in Ohio might be different than Vermont, what works in Vermont might be different than Massachusetts or Florida. So leveraging state laws where possible uh for um uh and we think in so doing uh that will allow us to cover more Head Start uh slots. Right now um Head Start is one of those programs where the budget is going up, the number of kids covered is going down. I just met with one of the predecessors who ran Head Start in a previous administration and she was saying in her time we had more than a million kids in Head Start. Today it's uh around 750,000 or fewer. Costs are going up, kids are going down and uh maybe there's some alternate pathways and I think uh the president's direction in the budget is an exciting one that we look forward to working with with the stakeholder community. The Trump administration has started working with a different provider to run the National Human Trafficking Hotline after there were concerns that calls from people being trafficked were not being answered. Could you describe how this has been going kind of some of the positive changes or changes that you've seen from this new provider taking over?

[00:27:56]>> Yeah, so um sometimes no news is good news. Uh you know, we did a competitive bid and through that competitive process, we selected a vendor. We had a transition period to make sure that there was no no gap because human trafficking is one of those significant issues that you need people to be able to access services whenever they need it and wherever they need it. Uh so uh we had a diligent roll out plan to ensure that there are no gaps in service and I'm not aware of any uh issues that have been reported. Um we I know uh when we changed there was some outreach uh to some of the attorney generals and others who had uh raised some of the initial concerns and I have not uh not uh heard any of those continued concerns since.

[00:28:38]>> When it comes to human trafficking, a big concern we've heard about throughout the Trump administration is the missing migrant children who may be being trafficked. Could you talk a little bit about your side of working on that issue of all these children that we don't know where they are and many of them have been found, but could you talk about your >> Yeah, so HHS basically set up a war room to start to track down those missing children and have made contact with tens of thousands of them. I think I I think the last number I saw was like 140,000, but I'd have to to to double check that.

[00:29:10]They have done yman's work chasing down these children and uh getting them the resources they need and preventing them from being trafficked or other things like the previous administration fasttrack them to. The other thing is the president's border policies are clearly working. Uh we are almost at a record low of uh current kids in our custody as unaccompanied alien children.

[00:29:32]And I think just three years ago we were at 23,000 kids in care and um I the last I saw was around 1,900. So the border policies are working. Kids are not flooding here in vulnerable situations.

[00:29:44]They're not being uh trafficked uh through fasttrack sponsorship through poorly vetted sponsors. And um you know I I commend the the broader border policies of this administration. What's next for that effort to find the remaining children? Even though so many have been found, some have not been tracked down. What can we expect to see from this?

[00:30:05]>> You're going to see continued effort because uh these these protecting children's safety and preventing them from trafficking is so important.

[00:30:15]>> One last question for you. Foster care is of course a huge priority for First Lady Melania Trump. What's it like to work with her on this subject?

[00:30:22]>> Yeah. No, her her office has been incredible. So there's an argument first lady Melania Trump is the highest ranking you know public official to have ever engaged directly in the foster care issue and uh it's something that her and her office care deeply about. They engaged on this in the first term. They engaged it between administrations and they put it front and center by signing that executive order uh last November.

[00:30:46]Um, I know uh the six-month anniversary of that executive order is coming up in May and we'll be talking a lot about all of the accomplishments under that. You know, we've talked about a home for every child. We've talked about some of the work uh to engage faith-based providers. Uh but there's been a lot of other work with uh IT systems improvements for child welfare and others that I think are going to really show a track record of success. As a former state child welfare agency director, I I will say if we follow uh the first lady's um directives to a tea, we will make a meaningful difference for children throughout this country. The other thing I'd say is um first lady just went up to Capitol Hill to talk about uh some legislative reforms to benefit older foster youth, to help them with education and training vouchers, to help them with housing. and uh I I know if uh we can get that legislation across the finish line, it will make a real difference for children as well. So grateful for her efforts and grateful for the partnership.

[00:31:44]>> That's great to hear. Well, thank you so much for sitting down for this conversation today.

[00:31:47]>> Thank you.