The concept of person-centered planning has been at play for decades, yet the publication of the Home and Community-based Services (HCBS) Settings Final Rule (“Final Rule”) in 2014 was the first time person-centeredness was explicitly tied to ongoing funding of home and community-based settings under the various Medicaid waiver authorities. As states work to comply with the Final Rule, agencies and service providers should embrace the important role they play in a state’s ability to make the shift to person-centeredness.

Tracy Bell, Public Consulting Group (PCG), became involved with the Kresge Foundation in July 2019. He was contacted by leadership to become a volunteer Advisory Committee member for the foundation’s Human Services Division. Mr. Bell works with other committee members to evaluate funding opportunities for local and state government agencies that meet certain criteria set forth by the foundation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way public sector organizations in the United States need to function, as they have had to transition to remote platforms to stay safe while, simultaneously, the needs of the communities they serve have increased significantly. According to the Pew Research Center in April 2020, “overall, 43% of U.S. adults now say that they or someone in their household has lost a job or taken a cut in pay due to the outbreak…among lower-income adults, […] 52% say they or someone in their household has experienced this type of job upheaval.”

Foster family recruitment and retention have always been challenging. Even while the number of children in foster care increased from 2012 to 2017, half of states saw a decrease in the number of available non-relative foster family homes. Though the number of children in foster care has since decreased to 424,000 in 2019, the need for foster families is still acute.