Foster Care Reform Bill Set to Become Law

For the third time in two years, the Republican-led Congress has delivered on its promise to advance legislation to promote stronger families through adoption. Last year, Congress approved legislation to assist families who wanted to adopt children through a $5,000 adoption tax credit to help offset the adoption costs. Another bill assured that the racial background of parents and child could not be used to delay or deny placement. This year, Congress maintained its momentum by passing legislation designed to achieve more prompt adoptions of children in foster care. The Adoption and Safe Families Act will shortly be sent to the President.
The Broken Foster Care System

That this issue involves vulnerable children makes it critical enough, but that little up-to-date statistical information is available about the experiences of children in the foster care system makes it doubly so. And, what we do know is grim:

More Children in the System: The foster care population in this country has increasingly escalated, jumping nearly 80 percent from 1985 to 1995, from 276,000 children to 494,000 children.

And Less Children Getting Out: The percentage of children adopted out of the foster care system has steadily declined, while the percentage of children experiencing more than one foster home placement has been on the increase. For example, from 1983 to 1990, the percentage of children adopted from foster care declined from 12 percent of the foster-care population to 7.7 percent, and the multiple placements were up from 43 percent in 1982 to 57 percent in 1990. We have no reasonable expectation that the situation has improved in recent years, but the bill mandates greater reporting that will provide this information in future years.

Few Return Home Permanently: While two-thirds of the children in foster care eventually are reunited with their families, one-third of those children return to foster care to escape unsafe or inappropriate conditions. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 100,000 children currently in the system will not be able to go home.

Few Available for Permanent Adoptive Homes: In 1990, only 12 percent of the children in the system were legally available for adoption.

Many Never Find Home: This year, some 15,000 children will turn 18 in foster care with no permanent home. Many of them will have been in the system for years. In 1990, two-thirds of all foster care children had been in the system -- originally designed to be a temporary haven -- for more than one year, and 11 percent had been in foster care five years or more.

And the Problem Will Only Worsen Without Intervention: Babies and very young children are entering foster care at a growing rate. Without increased incentives for adoption, it's likely more and more children will be in foster care for more and more of their lives.

States Have the Wrong Incentive: A flaw in the current foster care system is that the federal government in effect rewards states for keeping children in foster care by reimbursing states for costs on a per-day, per-child basis, thus giving no incentive to move children off their rolls and into permanent family settings.

Returning Reason to "Reasonable Efforts"

The law requires that states exert "reasonable efforts" to rejoin children with their biological families. However, experience has shown that far too often the child is left in limbo, unable to return to unsafe or unloving parents, but not free for a new permanent home. Congress recognized this and delivered:

In determining "reasonable efforts," the child's health and safety shall be of paramount concern.

Reasonable efforts to reunify a child with his or her family will NOT be required if a child or his/her sibling has been subjected to "aggravated circumstances" including but not limited to abandonment, torture, chronic abuse or sexual abuse, and including if the parent's rights to a sibling have been involuntarily terminated.

States would be required to conduct a permanency hearing within 30 days of a court's determination that reasonable efforts for family reunification do not have to be made. This hearing would assist the creation of a formal plan to address the needs of a child and the time-frame for permanent placement.

Once a permanency plan has been implemented, States would be required to expend reasonable efforts to place a child for adoption or with a legal guardian.

In order for a child to be free for adoption, a court must terminate the parents' rights. Only then can a child be placed with a permanent and loving family. Congress recognized this and delivered:

In the case of any child who has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months, has been abandoned, has been subject to assault or whose sibling has been assaulted or killed, states would be required to begin the process of terminating the parents' rights.

Promoting Loving Families through Incentive

The crisis facing children in public care is not so much the matter of spending levels as it is the focus of that spending. States are neither rewarded for finding adoptive homes not penalized for failure and delay. In short, there is no incentive to recruit adoptive families. And as more children enter the system, so does the tax money to support them. Congress recognized this problem and delivered:

$100 million is authorized through 2003 to reward states that increase adoptions over previous years' levels.

Eligible states will receive $4,000 for each child adopted out of foster care exceeding the average number of children adopted between FYs 1995-1997 or exceeding FY 1998 and subsequent year levels. In addition, States will receive $2,000 for each "special needs" adoption exceeding the average.

To be eligible for incentive payments, states must provide health insurance coverage to any child with special needs.

In addition to promoting adoption, Congress recognizes that under certain circumstances, biological families deserve special assistance.

The Family Preservation Program is reauthorized through FY 2001 with an additional $60 million in funding. This program would be redesigned to promote community-based family support services, family preservation services, time-limited family reunification services and adoption promotion and support services.

Measuring Performance: Adoption and Foster Care Report Cards

The Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the National Governors' Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and state and local child welfare officials, is required to develop ratings to assess states' foster care and adoption performance. These ratings would include the length of stay in foster care, the number of foster care placements and the number of adoptions for each state. This report would have to be delivered to Congress by May 1, 1999.

In addition, the Secretary is required to develop and recommend to Congress a performance-based incentive funding system for adoption and foster care payments within six months of enactment.

Republicans Placing Children First . . .

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 protects abused and neglected children by returning their health and safety as the paramount concerns. It promotes adoption by rewarding states that increase permanent placements over previous years. It accelerates permanent placements by requiring states to begin permanency planning within 12 months of the child's entrance into foster care. It increases the accountability of reform by publicly reporting state foster care and adoption performance. And, most importantly, this legislation offers to America's children a real opportunity for a loving and permanent home.
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