Assistance program
Guardianship Assistance
$2.3 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Administration for Children and Families, Health and Human Services, Department of
- Assistance
- Formula Grants
- CFDA number
- 93.090
- What it does
- The objective of the Guardianship Assistance Program (GAP) is to provide Federal financial participation (FFP) to states, Indian tribes, tribal organizations and tribal consortia (tribes) who opt to provide guardianship assistance payments to relatives who have assumed legal guardianship of eligible children that they previously cared for as foster parents. This assistance is intended to prevent inappropriately long stays in foster care and to promote the healthy development of children through increased safety, permanency, and well-being.
- Who benefits
- Beneficiaries are children who meet the following requirements: (1) the child has been eligible for title IV-E foster care maintenance payments while residing for at least six consecutive months in the home of the prospective relative guardian; (2) the state or tribe has determined that the permanency options of being returned home or adoption are not appropriate for the child; (3) the child demonstrates a strong attachment to the prospective relative guardian and the prospective guardian is committed to caring permanently for the child; and (4) for children who have attained the age of 14, the child has been consulted regarding the kinship guardianship arrangement. Beneficiaries may also be siblings of eligible children placed in the same kinship guardianship arrangement. FFP is available to states and tribes for payments made to a relative guardian in accordance with a kinship guardianship agreement that is in writing, negotiated, and binding. The program was amended (through Public Law 113-183) effective September 29, 2014 to allow continuation of title IV-E kinship guardianship assistance payments if the relative guardian dies or is incapacitated and a successor legal guardian is named in the agreement (or in any amendments to the agreement.)
- Who applies
- Funds are available to states (including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa) and to tribes with approved title IV-E plans.
- Authorized by
- Social Security Act
- Program site
- http://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Direct payments
$6.7K
<1%
Grants
$2.3B
100%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments