Public
Policy

President Bush Signs
Landmark Child Welfare
Reform into Law

For Immediate Release

Contact: Joe Kroll, NACAC Executive Director, 612-867-2650 phone, joekroll@aol.com email 

Years of advocacy by youth, parents, and child advocates culminated yesterday when President Bush signed into law the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act. A carefully negotiated House-Senate compromise bill introduced by Representatives Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Jerry Weller (R-IL) in mid-September, the measure passed the House on September 17 and—due to the efforts of Max Baucus (D-MT), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)—sailed through the Senate September 22. NACAC applauds Congress for its dedicated bipartisan efforts to pass into law this significant child welfare reform legislation before the end of the fiscal year.

“Though child welfare policy was reformed in 1997 with the Adoption and Safe Families Act,” observes Joe Kroll, executive director of the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC), “it has been 28 years since there was any meaningful child welfare financing reform.”

The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act will:

• Gradually, starting in federal fiscal year (FY) 2010, eliminate the link between Title IV-E adoption assistance eligibility and parental income requirements for children in foster care who have special needs.

Older youth will realize the benefit first, as will youth who have been in foster care for at least five consecutive years, and members of sibling groups being placed together if one sibling qualifies. By FY 2018, all children with special needs who enter foster care will be eligible for Title IV-E assistance regardless of their birth parents’ income.

• Reauthorize the adoption incentive program for another five years.

First introduced in 1997, the program gives states a financial inducement to increase the number of children adopted from foster care each year. The revised program gives states twenty-four months to spend incentive payments, doubles per child incentive amounts, and resets the baseline from which states measure adoption increases.

• Provide for the use of Title IV-E funding to subsidize IV-E kinship guardianship placements and Title IV-B funding to provide additional support to kinship caregivers.

Relatives of foster care-eligible children will be able to negotiate guardianship assistance agreements and receive payments and services similar to those offered through foster care. States will be able to claim Title IV-E reimbursement for kinship guardian payments, and offer Family Connection grants to groups that support kinship families. The law also requires state agencies to notify adult relatives within 30 days after a child enters care.

• Extend Title IV-E funding directly to tribal governments.

For too many years, U.S. tribes could only obtain second-hand financial support from their state(s) for child welfare services. The new law permits tribes, tribal organizations, and tribal consortiums that operate child welfare programs to directly receive federal funding just as states do now.

• Allow states to seek federal reimbursement for supporting Title IV-E eligible foster youth up to age 21.

To qualify for support, youth will need to be enrolled in school or a job training program, or employed for at least 80 hours per month. Youth whose medical conditions prevent them from going to school or holding a job are also eligible.

• Encourage agencies to place siblings together whenever possible.

The law mandates that “reasonable efforts” be made to place siblings who are removed from their birth family with the same foster, relative, or adoptive family. When joint placement is not in the children’s best interests, or siblings cannot be together for some other reason, the law encourages visitation and other means of interaction.

Kroll, referencing the long overdue Title IV-E de-linking provision, asserts, “This new act provides federal support to a group of the nation’s most vulnerable children—children in foster care who have been denied support due to irrelevant and outdated eligibility criteria.”Thanks to public forums that NACAC organized during the last few years with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, we know first-hand how much the new law’s provisions will help children and families like the following:

Cynthia wanted to adopt Emily. The teen had been in foster care five years and had special needs, but she was not Title IV-E eligible—and thus did not qualify for federal adoption assistance. Under the state’s policy of means testing state subsidy applicants, Cynthia’s income would have disqualified Emily for the state program too, if she were adopted. Because Cynthia knew Emily needed more support than she could offer without assistance, Emily stayed in care. Had the new law been in effect then, Emily would be Title IV-E eligible and secure in an adoptive family today instead of lingering in foster care.

Jackie’s mom was kind and loving, but lacked the mental capacity to adequately care for her daughter. Jackie entered foster care at eight and cycled through six placements before aging out of the system. Placed in relative and stranger foster homes, she wonders how life would have changed if subsidized guardianships had been available. “Subsidized guardianship,” Jackie reasons, “may have kept me with my extended birth family, saved the state money, and kept my mom’s parental rights from being needlessly, hurtfully terminated.”

Some provisions of the new law will not go into effect for more than a year, but the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act goes a long way toward addressing ongoing problems that have kept too many children in care from achieving the security of a permanent family. At long last, youth, parents, and the child welfare community can claim victory for inspiring Congress to de-link income from Title IV-E eligibility, support kinship families at the federal level, and facilitate child welfare autonomy for tribes.