Gov. Evers Approves New Rule Aimed at Keeping Kids in Foster Care With Family and Loved Ones

MADISON — Gov. Tony Evers today announced he has approved a new administrative rule designed to help improve the state’s foster care system by ensuring kids can more easily be placed with family relatives or like-kin caregivers when they are unable to safely remain in their home. The move takes an evidence-driven approach to help improve stability and permanent placement, which are critical for kids’ success, by increasing the number of kids and youth who are placed with people who know and love them. Gov. Evers, who began the year declaring 2025 the Year of the Kid in Wisconsin, approved a Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) administrative rule that provides a separate, streamlined licensing pathway for relative and like-kin caregivers and fair financial support.

“We know that kids do better when they have supportive and loving people around them, and they’re in settings where they feel safe and can be their best and full selves. Keeping adults in kids’ lives who know and love them can go a long way toward making sure a kid has the stability they need so they can be focused on being a kid,” said Gov. Evers. “This is about doing what’s best for our kids and helping increase the likelihood of youth being in an environment with their family and loved ones, especially during difficult, chaotic times in their lives.”

Research shows that when a child cannot safely remain in their home, placement with a relative or like-kin caregiver leads to stronger stability and permanency outcomes. In 2024, 39 percent of children in Wisconsin who entered out-of-home care were initially placed with relatives, increasing the likelihood that they would be placed with their siblings, experience more stability during their placement, and ultimately achieve permanency with family. By reducing barriers to licensure and delivering equitable financial support to relative and like-kin caregivers, these changes aim to increase the number of kids and youth with those who know and love them.

“This historic change is a reflection of Gov. Evers’ belief that what’s best for kids is what’s best for our state,” said DFC Secretary Jeff Pertl. “We know kids do better when they’re with family—however they define it. And families do better when they can spend less time running up against unnecessary administrative and financial barriers and more time together, being a family.”

The revisions to Chapter DCF 56, which were identified through collaboration with lived experts and child welfare professionals from across state, come nearly one year after Gov. Evers signed 2023 Wisconsin Act 119, bipartisan legislation to provide stronger support to like-kin caregivers by expanding the definition of those eligible to be kinship caregivers to include adults with a “like-kin” relationship with the child, as well as first cousins once removed.

In addition to strengthening supports for relatives and like-kin caregivers, other changes to Chapter DCF 56 allow for more local decision-making and incorporate unique considerations into how Wisconsin kids and youth are cared for. These changes support stronger engagement between families and child welfare professionals and promote the best outcomes for kids and families across the state, building upon Wisconsin’s Putting Families First initiative that focuses on keeping kids in family settings whenever possible.

In addition to streamlining the licensure pathway for relative and like-kin caregivers, the Evers Administration has also worked to cut red tape and streamline licensure and certification for the state’s child care industry. Last month, Gov. Evers and DCF launched new online tools to help Wisconsinites interested in starting a licensed or certified child care program navigate the regulation process, cutting license processing times nearly in half and helping to bolster the child care industry by making licensure and certification more accessible and straightforward for interested applicants.

For resources detailing DCF’s efforts to support relative and like-kin caregivers, visit the Putting Families First Communication Toolbox. To learn more about Wisconsin’s child welfare transformation to support families together and in-home, visit DCF’s Putting Families First webpage.

GOV. EVERS’ EFFORTS TO STABILIZE WISCONSIN’S CHILD CARE INDUSTRY, BOLSTER PROVIDERS, AND LOWER CHILD CARE COSTS FOR WORKING FAMILIES
Gov. Evers declared 2025 the Year of the Kid in Wisconsin and has made investing in the state’s child care industry to help fill available child care slots, cut child care wait lists, and lower the cost of care for working families a top priority of his administration and of this budget. Gov. Evers and the Evers Administration fought for a pro-kid state budget that makes meaningful investments in Wisconsin’s kids at every stage and every age. In the months leading up to the final 2025-27 Biennial Budget, Republican legislative leaders indicated they had no intention of making any direct investments in child care providers statewide.

Gov. Evers, who has been working to support child care providers and lower the cost of child care statewide for years, signaled that a budget without direct payments to child care providers was a non-starter and would force the governor to veto the budget if Republicans failed to include these critical funds. After months of negotiations with Republican leaders, Gov. Evers ultimately secured a $110 million investment for direct payments to child care providers in the 2025-27 Biennial Budget, delivering on his promise to ensure providers can continue to receive direct monthly payments to help pay their staff, keep their doors open and lights on, and continue providing high-quality care for Wisconsin’s kids and families. The final, bipartisan state budget enacted by Gov. Evers included more than $360 million to support Wisconsin’s child care industry and help lower child care costs for working families, a third of which is in direct payments to providers.

Following the signing of the final budget, in August, more than 3,100 child care providers across the state received a total of $8.7 million via the first round of direct payments to providers provided by the governor’s $110 million budget investment. Known as the Child Care Bridge Payments Program, this program is similar to the successful Child Care Counts Program, which was launched by Gov. Evers and the Evers Administration in 2020 and helped more than 5,700 child care providers keep their doors open, ensured the employment of more than 75,000 child care professionals, and allowed providers to continue care for more than 430,000 kids.

Additionally, in October, Gov. Evers announced that Wisconsin Shares families will see an increase in their subsidy amount, thanks to the governor’s investment of over $123 million in the Wisconsin Shares Child Care Subsidy Program in the bipartisan 2025-27 Biennial Budget. With this investment, the maximum Wisconsin Shares subsidy rate will be at or above the price of 75 percent of child care slots. The increase, which went into effect Oct. 1, will impact roughly 15,000 Wisconsin Shares families, with the average savings per family being around $174 per month.

In addition to the $110 million investment in direct payments to child care providers, as well as the over $123 million in the Wisconsin Shares Child Care Subsidy Program, the governor’s budget also includes:

• $66 million to fund a new “Get Kids Ready” initiative, the first-ever entirely state-funded child care program in Wisconsin state history, which will support child care providers serving four-year-olds to help prepare Wisconsin’s kids for kindergarten and get an earlier jump start on learning at a critical time in development;
  • The new first-of-its-kind program in Wisconsin is also designed to help ensure the state’s child care industry will receive sustainable, ongoing state investments into the future after Child Care Counts ends.
  • Kids in the program will be taught by child care providers using a curriculum that meets the Wisconsin model early learning standards.
• $2 million to Wonderschool designed to help child care providers across the state build capacity to be able to cut child care wait lists and ensure more kids and families have access to affordable child care;
  • The grant will expand access to high-quality child care in the state, including launching an online software platform that is linked to the department’s website to connect child care providers with child care workers.
• $2 million intended to help bolster Wisconsin’s CCRR Agencies, which help parents find child care locally and provide training and technical assistance opportunities to child care providers;
• $28.5 million for a pilot program to help support expanding capacity across Wisconsin’s child care industry to ensure more families with infants and toddlers can access quality, affordable child care.
  • The proposal will increase payments to providers caring for infants and toddlers across the state through the Wisconsin Shares program.
  • Under the plan, providers would receive payments of $200 per month for every infant under 18 months and $100 per month for every toddler between 18 months and 30 months.
  • The investment will also help ensure more families and kids have access to affordable child care by helping providers accommodate more infants and toddlers under a new temporary pilot program aimed at aligning Wisconsin with peer states like Minnesota, enabling providers to care for seven toddlers between 18 and 30 months of age per staff member.

Gov. Evers also exercised his broad, constitutional veto authority to partially veto aspects of the budget that were outside of the bipartisan budget negotiations. More information about the bipartisan pro-kid budget signed by Gov. Evers is available here.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.