Senator Grassley Introduces Key Adoption/Guardianship Legislation

At an event early today, surrounded by adoptive families from across Iowa, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced the Improved Adoption Incentives and Relative Guardianship Support Act (S. 3038).

"These parents are extraordinary for their commitment to children. Few things are as powerful as the desire of children in foster care for a safe and permanent home," said the Senator as he noted that public policy ought to encourage and foster more adoptions for everyone's benefit, especially children.

NACAC strongly support this legislation, which would:

- increase payments to state for finalizing adoptions for children with special needs
- make all foster children with special needs eligible for federal adoption assistance
- create a federal subsidized guardianship program to support relatives who become guardians so that their kin can permanently leave foster care

The bill has also been endorsed by the Kids Are Waiting campaign, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, and the National Foster Care Coalition.

More Children and Youth Waiting for a Family

The release of the latest AFCARS data shows that even more foster children and youth—129,000 in FY 2006 up from 114,000 in 2005—are waiting for a permanent, loving family. Sadly, the data also shows that more than 26,000 youth aged out of care in FY 2006 without finding a family—higher numbers than we've seen before. Adoptions from foster care remained steady at 51,000, and the overall number of children in care dropped slightly.

Clearly, there is a need for increased federal and state attention to finding and supporting families for foster children who cannot return home. It's time for legislative action that provides federal support of subsidized guardianship, increases access to adoption assistance, and enhances post-adoption support. Changes such as these would all help ensure that every child finds the permanent, loving family he needs and deserves, and that eventually no child leaves care without a legal connection to a family.

New Report Highlights Barriers to Adoption from Foster Care

The Collaboration to AdoptUsKids recently released a report that presents the findings of two longitudinal studies led by Dr. Ruth McRoy of the University of Texas at Austin Center for Social Work Research. Key findings from the study include:

Barriers

Families interviewed most frequently cited the following agency barriers to adoption:
- agency emotional support
- adoption process logistics
- jurisdictional or interjurisdictional issues
- agency communications/responsiveness

All of these factors, except for jurisdictional/interjurisdictional issues, correlated with whether a family successfully completed the adoption process.

Workers surveyed saw barriers due that included:
- the type of child (age, behaviors, sibling groups, etc.)prospective families were willing to adopt
- prospects' criminal background
- lack of experience with children who have special needs
- the availability of post-adoption services

Successes

Families cited the following factors (among others) as important to the success of their adoption:
- parents' commitment to the child
- child's showing progress in the home
- the parents' and child had bonded
the parents had realistic expectations of the child

A majority of families also found post-adoption supports (adoption subsidies, counseling, medical care, and more) to be very or extremely helpful. More than 40 percent of families, however, reported a problem accessing services. When asked to offer advice to adoption agencies, families suggested improved access to services such as respite, subsidy, support groups, and counseling.

To learn more, download a copy of the full report.