All Children in the Care of the Child Welfare Agency Are Eligible for Free School Lunches

In mid-December 2010, Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-296). The Act, in Section 102, amends a key provision of the National School Lunch Act (42 USC 1758) to make any foster child categorically eligible, without the necessity of an application, for free school meals if their "care and placement is the responsibility (of an agency that administers a state IV-B or IV-E plan)" or if a "court has placed (the child) with a caretaker household."

The director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (DOA) child nutrition division has indicated that to determine a student's eligibility, all a local educational agency needs to receive is documentation from the state or local child welfare agency stating that the child is a foster child under state responsibility or has been placed in a caretaker household by a court. These provisions are effective as of October 1, 2010.

DOA will be providing "prototype applications" for foster/kinship children and supporting materials for all state child-nutrition programs in the near future. DOA is also working with the Department of Health and Human Services to notify state child welfare agencies of this development.

Juvenile Law Center hopes that this new area of support—free nutritional food accessed at school for foster and kinship care children—will be an additional and important step toward improving the well-being of abused and neglected children. Juvenile Law Center is urging caseworkers, children's attorneys, guardians ad litem, court-appointed special advocates, and judges to raise this issue to ensure that children are actually accessing these free meals.