Support for a National Electronic Interstate Records Exchange System

The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) governs foster care and adoption placements across the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The ICPC establishes uniform legal and administrative procedures governing the interstate placement of children for the purposes of foster care, adoption, and residential placement. It is estimated that states explore ICPC placements across jurisdictions for nearly 100,000 children each year.

The Family First Prevention Services Act of 2017 requires all states to be connected to an electronic interstate case processing system by October 1, 2027. To facilitate that process, the purpose of this funding opportunity is to support the expansion and implementation of a secure, multi-tenant electronic system that meets the diverse demands of data sharing and privacy needed by states to achieve the orderly and timely interstate placement of children.

The national electronic records exchange system will:

Successfully onboard ICPC jurisdictions required to or interested in participating in the system;

Maintain and refine as needed the electronic exchange for the safe and secure exchange of information between all jurisdictions;

Improve administrative efficiency for ICPC jurisdictions by streamlining the ICPC administrative process;

Reduce access barriers for children awaiting placements in interstate placements and improve the likelihood of children achieving permanency in a timely manner who would benefit from an interstate placement in ICPC jurisdictions;

Allow for interoperability with other human service functions and systems;

Provide alignment with ACF’s promotion of system interoperability as modeled by efforts such as the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and the National Human Services Interoperability Architecture (NHSIA) and implements electronic exchanges utilizing such data exchange standards when interacting with state child welfare information systems;

Comply with security standards of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.