Iowa is implementing a 2023 federal rule that allows states to make their own kinship-specific licensing requirements, according to foster care workers and advocates.
State data from federal fiscal year 2025 shows about 43% of foster youth were placed with a relative or close family friend, known as kinship care. It's the most common placement for Iowa foster youth.
Under a federal rule called the Separate Licensing Standards for Relative or Kinship Family Homes, federal money subsidizes kinship caregivers' financial assistance at an amount that is equal to foster care assistance. It allows states to decide licensing requirements for kinship caregivers.
Kai McGee is the statewide director of foster care and adoption at the nonprofit Four Oaks — the state's main contractor for training and licensing foster and kinship parents. Unlike foster care, McGee said kinship financial assistance was limited to four months before the federal rule.
"The state could provide some financial support for daycare, but those things were really pretty temporary, and if the family didn't become licensed as a foster parent, eventually those supports would fall away," McGee said.
It typically takes six to nine months to become a licensed foster parent in Iowa. McGee said with the new kinship foster care license, it only takes about two months and doesn't require as many training classes, such as foster care licensing. Background checks and homes studies are still required.
Traci Schermerhorn, executive director of Foster SQUAD, a nonprofit serving foster and kinship families, praised Iowa for implementing the federal rule.
"It's going to make it so much easier for [kinship caregivers] to keep the kids for the long haul," she said.
Most foster youth are in the system for one to two years before finding a permanent placement, according to McGee.
Schermerhorn said foster care is different than kinship care because foster parents "go into this knowing," whereas kinship caregivers are "not planning on stepping into this world."
"There's a lot of financial requirements that when a kid comes to your home, you need to get ready quickly, to get beds and cribs and clothes," Schermerhorn said. "It was a real barrier for kinship families."
McGee said this will help keep foster youth with people they know.
"If you add several mouths at the dinner table that they weren't expecting, that was really a challenge for a lot of folks and so they would do their level best to try to make that work, but sometimes it just didn't work and that child ended up going into general foster care," McGee said.
Over 350 kinship households have been referred to receive the license since it went into effect on July 1, according to Four Oaks. At least 13 other states have implemented the federal rule since 2023.
