Public
Policy

Recent News and Pending Legislation

NACAC Supports Pending Legislation

There are a number of key bills pending in the current U.S. Congress that NACAC strongly supports:

• Adoption Equality Act (H.R. 4091/S. 1462)
• Improved Adoption Incentives and Relative Guardianship Support Act of 2008 (S. 3038)
• Fostering Connections to Success Act (H.R. 6307)
• Kinship Caregiver Support Act of 2007(H.R. 2188/S. 661)
• Tribal Foster Care and Adoption Act of 2007(H.R. 4688/S. 1956)

Below you will find more information about these bills and other pending legislation.

Visit our policy blog (Reform Foster Care Now) at http://reformfostercare.blogspot.com. Focusing on U.S. foster care system reform, our policy blog features posts from youth and parents who have system experience, as well as from staff and board members. Blog posts link to recently published reports and news items, and highlight changes that we believe must be made to better serve children and families.

Your Support Is Needed on the Improved Adoption Incentives and Relative Guardianship Support Act (S. 3038)

On June 24, the bipartisan Fostering Connections to Success Act (H.R. 6307) passed the House of Representatives. The bill would promote permanency for foster children in several ways:

• Reauthorize and expand the adoption incentive program (due to expire in September), which rewards states for increasing adoptions from foster care
• Enable states to receive federal Title IV-E funds for subsidized guardianship payments made on behalf of children who leave foster care permanently to live with relatives
• Extend, at state option, adoption assistance and foster care maintenance up to age 21
• Promote the adoption tax credit, encourage placement of brothers and sisters together, and seek more educational and health continuity for foster youth
• Provide tribes with direct access to Title IV-E funding to help children and families in their care
• Expand access to Title IV-E training funds

Now it's time for action in the Senate! NACAC hopes that the Senate will pass the Improved Adoption Incentives and Relative Guardianship Support Act (S. 3038), which would:

• Reauthorize and expand the adoption incentive program
• Make all foster children with special needs eligible for federal adoption assistance (de-linking from old AFDC income standards)
• Create a federal subsidized guardianship program to support relatives who become guardians so that their kin can permanently leave foster care

NACAC strongly supports the de-linking provision and hopes that if the Incentives and Relative Guardianship Support Act passes in the Senate, the final agreement reached in conference committee will include the de-linking provision and the direct funding for tribes. De-linking adoption assistance is important for several reasons:

• Tying federal support for children to the income of a family from which all rights have been legally severed makes little sense. All abused and neglected children need federal support, not just those who were born into very poor families.
• Each year, fewer children qualify for federal adoption assistance. When children don’t qualify for federal assistance, they may get state/local-funded assistance or even no assistance at all. Adoption assistance is a vital support to families raising children with often serious behavioral, emotional, or physical disabilities. With adoption assistance, families are able to access medical care, counseling or therapy, special equipment, tutoring programs, and other supports for their children who have special needs.
• Adoption assistance is cost-effective. A recent analysis showed that the 50,000 adoptions from foster care each year save from $3.3 billion to $6 billion in government funds.
• A lack of adoption assistance seriously affects children’s ability to find a permanent family and might resign them to a childhood spent in foster care.

Please ask your Senators to sign on as co-sponsors to S. 3038 today! To reach your Senators, go to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Other Pending Adoption & Foster Care Legislation

The Adoption Equality Act

On May 23, 2007, Senator Jay Rockefeller re-introduced the Adoption Equality Act (S. 1462), an act which would ensure that more children adopted from foster care are eligible for federal adoption assistance. The bill would amend Title IV-E of the Social Security Act to remove the link between birth parents’ income and their child’s eligibility for Title IV-E adoption assistance. In November, Representative Jim Cooper introduced a House companion bill (H.R. 4091).

When children are ineligible for federal assistance, they sometimes receive much less support. Research shows that post-placement support is a key factor in many families’ decision to adopt children who have special needs. As a result, some children may never find the stable family they deserve. In other cases, a lack of support can undermine parents’ ability to meet their children’s special needs. The declining federal share of adoption assistance also means states must pay more to support children adopted from foster care.

NACAC is pleased that the Adoption Equality Act includes a reinvestment provision. If states realize financing savings due to the increased federal support, they must invest those savings in child welfare services, including post-adoption support services.

Senator Rockefeller has championed this legislation since 1999, and NACAC hopes that Congress will finally admit that all abused and neglected children need federal support—not just those who were born into very poor families. This legislation would ensure that each waiting child has the best possible chance of finding a permanent, adoptive family who can meet his or her unique needs.

Kinship Caregiver Support Act

On February 16, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) formally reintroduced the Kinship Caregiver Support Act (Senate Bill 661), a bill that would provide support to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives who care for vulnerable children and youth. The bill now has more than 30 co-sponsors in the House and almost 20 in the Senate. (Click on the following links to see if your Senator or Representatives have already signed on.)

As Clinton explained in a March press conference at the GrandParent Family Apartments in the Bronx:

So many grandparents and other relatives are making great personal sacrifices to provide safe and loving homes for the children in their care. These guardians often take on this responsibility unexpectedly, facing physical, emotional, and financial challenges. Too often, the deck is stacked against these caring relatives: difficulties gaining formal custody of the children in their care, enrolling children in school, authorizing medical treatment, retaining public housing, getting affordable legal services, and accessing benefits that could help them provide care. By taking common sense steps, we can remove these… barriers and address the unique challenges facing kinship caregivers struggling to do the right thing for our children.

• provide federal assistance to states for subsidized guardianship programs so that relatives who become kinship caregivers receive the same subsidy a foster family would receive;
• establish a Kinship Navigator Program in states, large metropolitan areas, and Indian tribal organizations to help kinship caregivers (in and outside the foster care system) obtain needed services, including health care coverage for children in their care, housing assistance, childcare, school support, and more;
• permit states to have separate licensing standards for relative and non-relative foster families and still receive federal foster care funds; and
• ensure relatives receive notice within 60 days of a child entering foster care.

As expected, Congressmen Danny Davis (D-IL) and Tim Johnson (R-IL) recently introduced the House companion Kinship Caregiver Support Act (H.R. 2188). As Congressman Davis explained on May 10, “Modeled after the adoption assistance program, innovative programs in Illinois, and recommendations from the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, this bill….addresses gaps in existing foster care laws that withhold important supports from children living with relative guardians.”

The Kinship Caregiver Support Act is supported by Generations United, the Children’s Defense Fund, the Child Welfare League of America, the AARP, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, the Center for Law and Social Policy, Grandparents for Children’s Rights, the Kids Are Waiting Campaign, and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

NACAC also strongly supports this legislation, and is particularly interested in seeing federal support for subsidized guardianship. Guardianship is a permanency choice that is right for many foster children and youth whose birth parents cannot care for them, but for whom adoption is not the right option. In fact, NACAC favors a federal guardianship program that would also cover caring non-relatives who have emotional ties to the youth in their care.

With these new bills and recent media coverage about issues facing relative caregivers, subsidized guardianship is gaining a groundswell of support. Many policymakers and members of the public are moved by the stories of youth and caregivers who know guardianship would be the best permanency option for them. Jackie Hammers-Crowell of Iowa, whose mother’s developmental delays prevented her from raising Jackie, tells why guardianship would have been better than aging out of foster care as she did: “Subsidized guardianship may have kept me with my extended birth family, saved the state money, and kept my mom’s parental rights from being needlessly...terminated against our wills.”

Montana resident Robert Carson had a similar experience. Although his birth parents couldn’t raise him, he did not want to relinquish his ties to them even though he was being raised by his great-grandmother (G-G). Guardianship made a real emotional difference for Robert: “On the inside, I always knew that G-G was there for me,” explains Robert. “When we actually got it in writing that she was my guardian, I thought it was really cool!”

Helen Clay of Iowa became her grandson Cordell’s foster parent when his mother (her daughter) could no longer raise him. He has serious special needs and emotional scars from his early life, and Helen needs support to help him heal. No opponent to adoption, Helen has adopted four other foster children. In Cordell’s case, however, she knows that guardianship would provide the permanence he needs without re-arranging family boundaries. She explains, “He has enough problems without his aunts and his mother becoming his sisters. That’s like a bad rap song.”

Nationally more than 19,000 children like Cordell live with relative foster parents and have little hope of reunifying with their birth parents.* Subsidized guardianship would enable them to leave foster care—thereby reducing administrative and court costs—while also supporting the relatives and other committed individuals who care for them. Since Illinois implemented a subsidized guardianship program through a federal funding waiver in 1997, more than 9,500 of the state’s foster children left care permanently through this program. (Many relatives also chose to adopt children in their care once they could choose guardianship or adoption.)

As a society, we pay relatives to care for children in foster care or adoption, but not when they choose guardianship—a valid permanency option that is right for many families. It’s time for federal support of subsidized guardianship, and the Kinship Caregiver Support Act is a step in the right direction.

*Children and Family Research Center, Fostering Results. The Foster Care Straight Jacket: Innovation, Federal Financing and Accountability in State Foster Care Reform. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, School of Social Work, March 2004.

Tribal Foster Care and Adoption Act

It’s a Matter of Justice—Tribes Should Have Access to
Direct Federal Funding

On August 2, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) introduced legislation that will provide Indian tribes with the same direct access to federal foster care and adoption funding that states receive. The Tribal Foster Care and Adoption Act of 2007 (S. 1956) will make it possible for tribes to establish independent foster care and adoption programs, and therefore provide culturally competent services to the many Native children in care in the U.S.

Enacted in 1980, the Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Act did not consider that thousands of American Indian children receive child welfare services through their tribal governments.  State governments were the only eligible recipients for Title IV-E funds.  As a result, American Indian children under the jurisdiction of tribal courts could not receive Title IV-E services.  These are the same children who live in communities with some of the greatest needs in the United States.  This oversight has essentially made a class of children ineligible for federal entitlement services simply because of where they live in the United States.

As a recent General Accountability Office report shows, Native American children are dramatically over-represented in foster care in this country. Legislation that helps tribes support families, provide foster care services, and find permanent families for foster children and youth is critically important. 

Currently, to receive federal Title IV-E funding, tribes must negotiate separate contracts with the states in which they are located. The amendment of the Social Security Act would help children and families in the following ways:

• Tribes would be better able to offer permanency services for the children in their care—just as states do for the children under their guardianship and custody. With the current patchwork of funds that tribes use, continuity of services is almost impossible and it is challenging to achieve the goals of safety, permanence, and well-being for children and youth in their care.
• Many Native families, especially on reservations, have very low incomes and need support to be able to keep their children.
• Currently, states have about 12 sources of funds that they use for child welfare services. Tribes have only six. As a result, when foster care caseloads increase, funds must be diverted from prevention and support services.
• Although the Indian Child Welfare Act rightly gave tribes responsibility for tribal children in foster care, it did not provide funding. To access federal Title IV-E funding, tribes must contract with the state to receive support for children and families. It’s a simple matter of justice that tribes should have access to funds to meet their legislated responsibility.

As Senator Baucus explained, “This bill provides Tribes with the ability to serve their children directly with culturally appropriate care and understanding. This bill serves some of our most vulnerable children and Congress must stand up for those kids.  It is only logical to put Tribal adoption services on equal footing with the states, and I intend to work with my colleagues to do just that.”

The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), John McCain (R-AZ), Carl Levin (D-MI), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).

The Partnership for Children and Families Act

In November, Representative Shelly Berkley (D-NV) introduced the Partnership for Children and Families Act (H.R. 4207)—an important bill that would expand the federal/state partnership that provides assistance to foster and adopted youth through the federal Title IV-E program.

Under current law, a foster child can access federal Title IV-E support only if his family of origin was poor enough to be eligible for the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program as it existed in 1996. A child’s access to Title IV-E adoption assistance is also usually tied to 1996 AFDC income limits or to eligibility for the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.  

The Partnership for Children and Families Act would eliminate the outdated AFDC income eligibility restriction that impairs children’s access to adoption assistance and foster care maintenance. It would also eliminate the SSI eligibility requirement for adoption assistance.  

The significant decrease in Title IV-E-eligible children has translated into an estimated $1.9 billion loss in federal funding to the states. Since states must shoulder the cost for all children in foster care, regardless of the children’s parents’ income, diminished federal support adversely affects other service programs—including family support and preservation services, programs to safely reunite children with their birth families, and efforts to find new adoptive or guardianship families.  

By linking federal foster care support to the defunct AFDC program, the federal government also wastes precious time and money as child welfare staff spend hours tracking down income data to determine eligibility. These resources would be far better spent protecting children and ensuring that they exit foster care to permanent families instead of leaving care at 18 with no family safety net.

Under current law, states lose federal funds when they reduce their caseloads. The Partnership for Children and Families Act would instead allow states that reduce their foster care population below a set baseline to reinvest extra foster care funds in other child welfare services. This support for children and families could include: 

• Services that reduce the need for children to enter foster care, including family support and preservation services.  
• Intensive reunification services for children in foster care.  
• Services to prevent foster care re-entry for children who return to their parents, live with relatives, or are adopted by new families.  

The Adoption Improvement Act

On November 19, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced the the Adoption Improvement Act (S. 2395), a bill designed to speed the adoptions of children from foster care. The legislation would dedicate $50 million to help retain prospective adopters as they go through the process of adopting from foster care.  

As currently constructed, the legislation is designed to breach adoption obstacles identified in a recent study by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in collaboration with Harvard University and the Urban Institute. The study, "Listening to Parents: Overcoming Barriers to the Adoption of Children from Foster Care," found that each year, about 240,000 people in the United States seek information about adopting a child from foster care. Yet only a very small fraction of these prospects end up actually adopting a child from care. As a result, thousands of needy children will remain in foster care and thousands of prospective parents will turn away from the children they hoped to find.  

To address these barriers, the act would fund projects that effect long-range improvements in the adoption process by increasing prospective adoptive parents’ access to adoption information and strengthening agencies’ responsiveness to potential adoptive parents. At least 10 child welfare agencies could benefit from these funds—a good first step to help ensure that the 114,000 children who are awaiting permanence have more chances to find their forever families.  

“I believe that success today is when we hear of a child who has found a loving home, and when we see a sad situation turn into an inspirational story of hope,” Senator Rockefeller asserted. “But success tomorrow will be when we reach each and every child – when not one is left wondering who is there to love them, when not one is left without a nurturing home.”