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CWLA 2008 Children's Legislative Agenda
Adoption
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Action
- Protect Title IV-E Adoption Assistance as an entitlement
for children placed as special needs adoptions and
reform the outdated eligibility that limits federal support
for special needs adoptions.
- Enact the Adoption Equity Act, S. 1462/H.R. 4091, which
will begin to reform federal financing by repealing the outdated
eligibility requirements for special needs adoptions.
- Reauthorize the Adoption Incentive Program with
improvements that include a revised baseline to encourage
continuing increases in the number of children
adopted from foster care.
- Increase funding to $50 million in FY 2009 for the
Adoption Opportunities Program.
- Create a funding source and strengthen federal support
for postadoption services that work to support and
strengthen adoptive families in the long term.
History
Adoption is a vital service, bringing children whose birth
parents cannot or will not be able to provide for them
together with nurturing adults who seek to build or add to
their families. Although only 2 to 3% of the U.S. population
is adopted, adoption touches the lives of many people. In
1938, CWLA published the first professional standards to
guide adoption agencies.
- Over the past decades, families choosing to adopt have
become increasingly diverse. A growing number of foster
families, families of color, older individuals, and families
with children, two-parent working families, single parents
(both male and female), gay and lesbian couples, families
with modest incomes, individuals with physical disabilities,
and families of all education levels, religious persuasions,
and from all parts of the country now adopt. These individuals
and families have one important thing in common: They
are willing and able to make a lifelong commitment to protect
and nurture a child not born to them by providing a
safe and loving family for that child. A recent survey indicated
47% of adults have been touched by adoptions, either
by adopting a child, having been adopted, or being close to
someone who has adopted or was adopted. 1
Title IV-E Adoption Assistance
The Title IV-E Adoption Assistance program is the primary
federal support for adopting children from foster care, as it
provides subsidies to eligible families who adopt children
with special needs (as defined by the state) from the foster
care system. In FY 2008, the federal government will provide
a projected $2.1 billion for adoption assistance payments,
services, and administrative costs associated with
making those payments. In 2002, adoption assistance
payments served an average of 285,600 children a month. 2
A child's eligibility for Title IV-E Adoption Assistance is
currently linked to the outdated 1996 Aid to Families with
Dependent Children (AFDC) income standards. If a child
was removed from a home that would have been eligible for
cash welfare assistance as it existed on July 16, 1996, that
child's family may be eligible for special needs adoption
assistance. Eliminating this outdated eligibility criterion will
allow many more children in foster care to become part of
an adoptive family. Currently, two bills in Congress would
eliminate this link to the old AFDC program and allow
states to cover all special needs adoptions-S. 1462, introduced
by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), and H.R. 4091,
introduced by Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN).
Adoption Incentive Program
The Adoption Incentive Program was first enacted as part
of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-89)
to promote greater permanence for children. In 2003,
Congress passed the Adoption Promotion Act of 2003 (P.L.
108-145) to reauthorize this program with modifications.
The Adoption Incentive Program is designed to encourage
states to finalize adoptions of children from foster care,
with additional incentives for finalizing adoptions of children
in foster care with special needs.
All states have received an adoption incentive payment
during at least one year out of the past seven. In 2006, 21
states qualified for $11.6 million. 3 Many states experienced
their greatest increase in adoptions from 1997 to 1999, the
initial years incentives were provided. Under the original
formula, a state had to exceed the year it had its highest
number of adoptions to continue to receive an incentive
payment. As states successfully reduced the number of children
in their child welfare systems, however, this became
more and more difficult each year.
In 2003, the incentive formula was revised to provide
payments in four categories. A state may receive a maximum
of $8,000 per child:
- $4,000 for each child in foster care adopted above the
established baseline of children adopted from foster care;
- $6,000 for each child in foster care adopted whom the
state classifies as having special needs, as long as the
state also increases the total number of children adopted;
- $8,000 for each older child in foster care (age 9 or
older) adopted above the baseline of older foster child
adoptions, as long as the state also increases the total
number of children adopted; and
- $4,000 for each older child in foster care adopted above the
baseline of older foster child adoptions when the number of
older foster child adoptions increases, but the overall number
of children adopted from foster care does not increase.
The 2003 law also reset the target number of adoptions
a state must reach to receive a bonus payment. Under the
current formula, to receive a payment in any of the categories
(overall adoptions, special-needs adoptions, or older-child
adoptions), a state must exceed the number of adoptions in
these categories set in FY 2002. For any subsequent year,
the baseline is the highest number of adoptions in 2002
or later. The law allows Congress to approve $43 million
annually for the payments. If states cannot draw down all
the funds, the money is returned to the federal government
and not reallocated for other adoption efforts. Since the
2003 reauthorization, national numbers of adoptions have
remained at approximately 51,000 per year and the amount
of incentives provided to states has decreased.
Issues for the 2008 Reauthorization of the Adoption Incentive Fund
As Congress prepares to reauthorize this fund in 2008, several
issues will arise. One is the suggestion that this fund
be converted into a "permanency" incentive fund. Under this
proposal, states would be rewarded for placing children not
only into adoptive homes, but into the other two permanency
settings-kinship care and family reunification. The challenge
to this proposal is how you measure successful kinship
placements and permanent reunifications of children with
their families.
A second challenge is the current baseline for awarding
bonuses to states. Under the current structure, a state must
always exceed its highest year. This structure becomes
increasingly difficult as time goes on. One option that may
address this problem is to have a rolling average over a two
or three year period that will reward states that increase
adoptions from one year to the next.
A final challenge is the use of adoption incentive funds.
Funds awarded to states for increased adoptions do not
necessarily have to be spent on adoption-related activities.
At the federal level, Congress annually appropriates funds
for the Adoption Incentive Fund and if all of those funds are
not awarded to states, the remaining federal appropriations
are returned to the federal treasury instead of being allocated
for adoption activities at the federal level.
Adoption Support Under Promoting Safe
and Stable Families (PSSF)
Congress reauthorized the Promoting Safe and Stable
Families Program (PSSF) in 2006 with the enactment of the
Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 (P.L.
109-288). The reauthorization added funding to enhance
court improvement programs and create new programs to
address substance abuse and workforce development. The
core PSSF program did not change, except for tribal governments.
The amount of funding set aside or designated for
tribal government was streamlined and tribal governments
can form consortia to draw down their share of PSSF funds.
PSSF, formerly the Family Preservation and Support
Services Program, is an important source of federal funding
for an array of services for families with children, including
support for adoptive families. Funds are allocated to states
according to the relative share of children receiving food
stamps, subject to a 25% nonfederal match. In FY 2008,
funding for PSSF is $368 million, with at least 20% available
for adoption support.
Adoption Opportunities Program
The Adoption Opportunities Program provides discretionary
grants for demonstration projects that eliminate barriers to
adoption and aim to provide permanent, loving homes for
children who would benefit from adoption, particularly children
with special needs. Congress approved $26.3 million
for the program in FY 2008-the same level of funding that
has been in place since FY 2003.
The Adoption Opportunities Program provides several
resources and supports to help with the adoption of children,
including the Collaboration to AdoptUsKids, which
recruits families for children waiting to be adopted through
its National Recruitment Campaign. As of December 2008,
8,664 children had been listed on the www.AdoptUsKids.org
website and placed in adoptive homes. Other elements of
the AdoptUsKids Cooperative agreement include an annual
summit, a national adoption workgroup, research on adoption,
support for adoptive parent groups, the AdoptUsKids
photo-listing site, and training and technical help for states
as needed.
A major success has been the number of sibling groups
families have adopted. Of the total number of children
adopted from foster care through AdoptUsKids efforts, 2,440
children were from 992 sibling groups. The average sibling
group size was 2.7 children and more than 100 of these sibling
groups included groups of four or more siblings. Of all
the children placed through AdoptUsKids, the average age of
a child at placement was 10.1 years old, and the ages of the
children placed spanned from 2 months to 20 years old.
Other examples of how the Adoption Opportunities
Program funding has helped include:
- the National Resource Center on Special Needs Adoption,
which provides technical help and training to state, tribal,
and other child welfare organizations on current
issues in special-needs adoption, such as compliance
with federal laws and regulations, permanency planning,
and cultural competence;
- the Child Welfare Information Gateway, managed by
Caliber, Inc. and the National Adoption Information
Clearinghouse, which are comprehensive information
centers on adoption;
- the National Adoption and Foster Care Recruitment
Campaign and the You Gotta Believe program, which
seek permanent placements for older children; and
- a focus on rural adoption, including 10 discretionary
grants across the nation to explore and develop rural
adoption, along with a focus on older youth permanency
through nine discretionary grants to agencies involved in
permanent placement of older teens.
Interstate Barriers to Adoption
Due to differing state requirements and standards (including
the contents of a home study and the training of parents),
adoptions across state lines generally take longer than
adoptions within a state. For a child to be placed with an
adoptive or foster family in another state, the state requesting
that adoptive placement must request that the family's
state of residence conduct a home study of the prospective
adoptive family. This can take a very long time and
greatly delay the adoption. The Interstate Compact on the
Placement of Children (ICPC) governs these interstate procedures.
After several months of discussion, a new compact
has been drafted and states are now in the process of adopting
the new ICPC, which was originally agreed to more than
40 years ago.
In 2006, Congress approved the Safe and Timely
Interstate Placement of Foster Children Act (P.L. 109-239).
The legislation, sponsored by former Representative Tom
DeLay (R-TX), speeds the placement of adoptive children and
children in foster care across state lines. It requires that a
state receiving a request to place a child for adoption or foster
care conduct a home study within 60 days. The state making
the request then must respond within 14 days of receiving
the home study results. The legislation does not require
states to include the completion of education and training of
prospective foster or adoptive parents within the 60-day
timeframe since this training may extend beyond that time
period. The new law also establishes a small incentive fund
to states that provides $1,500 for every home study completed
within a 30-day timeframe. Neither the Administration, nor
Congress, funded this incentive in FY 2008.
Post Adoption Services Needs
Historically, most federal adoption support has been targeted
toward promoting adoptions. As time passes and
adoptive families increase, however, so does the need to
address some of the challenges that may surface in later
years for these families through postadoption services.
The most common postadoption services include support
groups, crisis intervention, child and family advocacy, adoption
searches, case management, family therapy, mental
health treatment, respite care, and targeted case management.
Some adoption agencies also provide chemical abuse
treatment, day treatment, and intensive in-home supervision,
indicating a strong commitment to making adoption
placements work.
- A mix of federal, state, local, and private funds have
supported these important services. In a 2006 survey of
CWLA member agencies involved with adoption, more
than a third of respondents reported using contract money
through the state or county child welfare agency to support
these services. 4 Other government funding includes
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), adoption
incentive grants, adoption opportunities grants, Medicaid,
and state mental health funding. For the rest of the agencies,
funding appears to be challenging, with many using
funding sources other than public agency contracts or funds
to pay for postadoption services. A few agencies receive
small grants from foundations to pay for programs. Some
agencies charge families for postadoption services using a
sliding scale based on family income. More than two-thirds
of agencies surveyed support these services independently
because they either have no outside funding, or the funding
does not cover the total cost of services.
Key Facts
Current federal adoption supports are important, but maintaining
the status quo is insufficient. Despite strides to promote
adoptions, the need continues, as these statistics reveal:
- The number of children adopted from foster care has
increased in recent years: 28,000 in 1996; 31,000 in
1997; 37,000 in 1998; 47,000 in 1999; 51,000 in 2000;
51,000 in 2001; 52,000 in 2002; 50,000 in 2003; 51,993
in 2004; and 51,323 in 2005. 5
- Of the 153,000 children in foster care in 2005, approximately
114,000 were waiting to be adopted. 6
- In 2005, 66,000 children in foster care had parental
rights terminated for all living parents. 7
- Of the children waiting to be adopted from foster care as
of September 2005, 36% were black non-Hispanic, 40%
were white non-Hispanic, 15% were Hispanic, 4% were
mixed race non-Hispanic, 2% were Native American or
Alaska Native non-Hispanic, and 3% were of undetermined
ethnicity. 8
- In 2005, the median age of children waiting to be adopted
was 8.4 years. Four percent of the children waiting to be
adopted were younger than 1 year; 33% were ages 1 to 5;
25% were ages 6 to 10; 29% were 11 to 15; and 8%
were 16 or 17. 9
- Of the children adopted from foster care in 2005, 2%
were younger than age 1; 51% were ages 1 to 5; 28%
were ages 6 to 10; 16% were 11 to 15; and 3% were 16
to 18. 10
- Of the children adopted from foster care in 2005, 60%
were adopted by their foster parents, 15% were adopted
by a nonrelative, and 25% were adopted by a relative. 11
Sources
- Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption. (2007). Adoption Attitudes Survey. Available online. Dublin, Ohio: Author. back
- U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means. (2004). Title IV Adoption Assistance Program. (Available in the 2004 Green Book). Washington, DC: Author. back
- Administration for Children and Families. (2006). HHS news. Available online. Washington, DC: Department of Health and Human Services. back
- Child Welfare League of America. (2006). CWLA survey of post-adoption services. Available online. Washington, DC: Author. back
- Child Welfare League of America. (2006). Special tabulation of the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System. Washington, DC: Author. back
- Ibid. back
- U.S. Children's Bureau. (2007). AFCARS report #13: Preliminary FY 2005 estimates as of September 2006. Available online. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. back
- Ibid. back
- Ibid. back
- Ibid. back
- Ibid. back
- Ibid. back
CWLA Contact
John Sciamanna
703/412-3161
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