EO-14359
Fostering the Future for American Children and Families
- Signed
- Nov 13, 2025
- Published
- Nov 19, 2025
Federal Register: 2025-20406
Source: Federal Register.
Modernizing Foster Care and Expanding Faith-Based Partnerships
What it does
This order directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to modernize the foster care system within 180 days by updating data collection, promoting AI-assisted tools, and publishing an annual state-by-state scorecard. It also establishes a "Fostering the Future" initiative to create an online platform connecting current and former foster youth to housing, education, employment, and healthcare resources. Additionally, it directs federal action to address state and local policies that restrict faith-based organizations from participating in federally funded child-welfare programs.
Who benefits
Children currently in foster care, who would receive improved placement matching and reduced time in the system. Youth aging out of foster care, who would gain access to a centralized resource platform, expanded Education and Training Vouchers, and career-focused programs. Faith-based foster and adoptive families and organizations that have been excluded from federally funded programs due to their religious beliefs. States and caseworkers who would benefit from modernized information systems and reduced duplicative reporting. Taxpayers, through more efficient allocation of federal child-welfare funds.
Who is affected
LGBTQ+ prospective foster and adoptive parents, who may face increased competition from faith-based providers that hold beliefs opposing same-sex households, potentially narrowing their placement options. State child-welfare agencies, which would face new federal data and reporting standards and scorecard evaluations. Secular or non-faith-based child-welfare nonprofits, which may see a relative shift in federal partnership emphasis toward faith-based organizations. Children in foster care who are LGBTQ+, who may be placed with providers whose beliefs conflict with their identities. Caseworkers, whose agencies would be subject to new performance metrics.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that the foster care system is chronically underfunded in innovation and that AI-assisted matching, modernized data systems, and a centralized resource platform would produce measurable improvements in child outcomes. They contend that excluding qualified faith-based families and organizations from federally funded programs — which serve a large share of foster children — reduces the pool of available caregivers and violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, as affirmed in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021). They further argue that expanding Education and Training Vouchers and redirecting unused state funds to youth aging out of care addresses a well-documented gap in support for one of the most vulnerable populations in the country.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that directing HHS to challenge state and local policies restricting faith-based providers could allow agencies to decline placements with LGBTQ+ families or youth, subordinating the best-interest-of-the-child standard to religious preference. They contend that the use of predictive analytics and AI in child-welfare decisions raises serious civil liberties concerns, including the risk of algorithmic bias against low-income and minority families. They further argue that the annual state scorecard, while framed as transparency, could be used to pressure states into adopting federal policy preferences in an area — child welfare — that has historically been a state function, raising Tenth Amendment concerns about federal coercion through funding conditions.
Constitutional basis
Executive orders rest on constitutional authority or statutory delegation. This summary describes the legal grounding cited or implied by the order.
The order rests on the president's Article II, Section 3 Take Care Clause authority to direct executive branch agencies in implementing existing statutes. The primary statutory foundations are Title IV-E and Title IV-B of the Social Security Act, which govern federal foster care and child-welfare funding and grant HHS broad regulatory and administrative authority over state child-welfare programs. The faith-based provisions implicitly invoke the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (42 U.S.C. §2000bb) and First Amendment Free Exercise protections as interpreted in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021).