[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 56 (Wednesday, March 30, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S1854]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of January Contreras

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, the Senate will soon vote on an important 
nomination to the Department of Health and Human Services. January 
Contreras is President Biden's choice to serve as Assistant Secretary 
for children and families.
  The Senate Finance Committee is taking a special interest in kids, 
families, and fresh approaches to strengthen opportunities for them and 
for America's future.
  Now, people have been a little bit surprised that the Finance 
Committee is taking this big interest because, normally, they think 
that the Finance Committee deals primarily with big money issues. Taxes 
and trade would be two examples.
  Those are certainly very, very important, and we spend plenty of time 
working on those. But the committee also feels very strongly that we 
can't afford to write off the hopes and dreams of our future, which are 
our kids and our families. We can't afford, as a country, to lose these 
young minds and these young families, to take away the kinds of 
opportunities they could have with just a few well-targeted, sensible 
investments in their future. And when January Contreras is confirmed, 
that is exactly the kind of work that she is going to be doing: caring 
for some of the most vulnerable young people in our Nation, those young 
people who are in the child welfare system.
  One of the big challenges in the last few years of the Administration 
for Children and Families has been the implementation of our bipartisan 
Family First Prevention Services Act. This was an extraordinarily 
important law, particularly for kids who are in foster care.
  We had, until this law came along, essentially two choices for these 
kids. We could send them off to a foster home. Some of them might be 
good; some of them we know aren't so good. Or we could leave them in a 
family situation at home that wasn't too desirable. You might have a 
parent who had been caught up in drugs or alcohol or something else.
  What the Finance Committee did in enacting the Family First 
Prevention Services Act is it said: We have got these two choices over 
here, neither of them are ideal. What we will do is create a third 
path, which is the Family First Prevention Services Act.
  So, for example, for a family in Arizona--the Presiding Officer's 
home State--that family would be in a position to stay together but 
also to receive some of the services--the anti-drug services, the 
efforts to get people off alcohol and addiction--and keep the family 
together. Very often, a grandparent would help out.
  Family First is, in my view, the future of much of our domestic 
policy in this country because it means we aren't going to write off 
our kids and families caught up in the child welfare system.
  The bill was bipartisan. Chairman Hatch was then the chairman. I was 
the ranking member. I think this bill is a once-in-a-generation 
overhaul of how child welfare works in America.
  As I described to the Presiding Officer, before Family First, 
families, in effect in Arizona and elsewhere, were broken apart by 
default. In other words, you had the two choices, neither of them very 
good. Family First--put together on a bipartisan basis in the Finance 
Committee--recognized that young people grow up better at home, and 
families have an incredible capacity to deal with the proper support. 
So we signed Family First to help families stay together whenever it is 
safe and possible.
  As I mentioned, maybe the parent needs a little help with substance 
abuse or mental health treatment; getting clean will make the home safe 
and the community often safer.
  And, as I have mentioned, I was particularly thrilled that we could 
look to grandparents once again to step in as a caretaker for their 
grandkids, because when I was a young member of the other body, I wrote 
the Kinship Care bill, which was something that really came out of 
America's churches, where grandparents could step in and provide a 
compassionate role model and caretaker for the grandkids. The new 
approach builds that smart flexibility into the system so the kids and 
families could get the support they need.
  In my view, it is especially important right now to help address 
mental health. The Finance Committee had a hearing today on that. 
Senator Crapo and I have vowed to have a bipartisan bill on that. And 
it is particularly important to have Family First right now because it 
allows us to address mental health and substance abuse and strengthen 
families at the same time. This is what families are all about.
  Now, implementing the law takes a lot of close collaboration between 
the Federal Government and the States. It has not been easy. The 
previous administration made it pretty challenging. But because this is 
a bipartisan priority for the Finance Committee, we just pushed ahead. 
And I am especially looking forward to working with Ms. Contreras on 
that task.

  Ms. Contreras and I have some work experience that might be of 
interest to the Presiding Officer. Ms. Contreras led the Arizona Legal 
Women and Youth Services, a legal aid organization for children and 
young adults who have experienced abuse, neglect, family separation, 
homelessness, and human trafficking.
  Before my time in the Congress, I ran the Oregon legal services for 
the elderly program, a legal aid program specially for seniors. And 
then the rest of the time I was codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers 
helping, again, families and seniors and others. Back then, seniors 
were constantly getting clobbered by insurance scams and bill 
collectors, and somebody needed to be there for them. So Ms. Contreras 
is very, very qualified for this job--qualified to steer Family First 
into a period of exceptional progress because States are really hungry 
for this option, the option that makes a big difference because it 
ensures that we are not writing off our families; we are not giving up 
on them.
  That is something that I think is particularly important to hear from 
our Finance Committee members because everybody thinks that the 
committee just focuses on all these things with Big Money, but we are 
especially interested in seeing nominees like Ms. Contreras come 
forward.
  I think she will do a terrific job as the head of the Administration 
for Children and Families. She is going to do a terrific job of moving 
Family First ahead. She had bipartisan support in the Senate Finance 
Committee.
  I urge all Members of the Senate to vote for January Contreras when 
she comes up later this evening.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.