Vote on Key Legsilation Expected This Week

On Jun 19, Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Representative Jerry Weller (R-IL) introduced the bi-partisan Fostering Connections to Success Act (H.R. 6307), which 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

As Representative McDermott explains, “I’m pleased to say that Jerry Weller and I have put together a bill on a bi-partisan basis whose only goal is improving the lives of foster kids,” McDermott said. “... This bill provides real help for children in foster care, especially those now pushed out of the system on their 18th birthday and those who want to live with relatives.”

NACAC is delighted to see this bill that will enable states and tribes to better serve foster children. In particular, the subsidized guardianship option could enable as many as 15,000 children living in foster care with relatives to leave foster care and live permanently with supported relatives. Currently, relatives who become legal guardians to care for foster children permanently cannot receive the continuing financial assistance they need to help provide for the children they are raising.

The direct funding for tribes is also long overdue. 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.

A vote on this bill is expected this week, so we encourage you to ask your Representative to cosponsor HR 6307 right away. To reach your Representative, go to https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml.

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 Publication Highlights Benefits of Subsidized Guardianship

Earlier this month, the Kids Are Waiting campaign released a report showing that more than 15,000 children and youth could leave foster care permanently and safely if a federally supported guardianship was available. Strengthening Families Through Guardianship: Issue Brief highlights the successes that state subsidized guardianship programs have had helping children leave care for good.

The reports notes that children living in foster placements with relatives are as safe as those living with non-relatives, are more likely to be placed with their brothers and sisters, and are more likely to be in the same placement one year later, which is an important measure of stability for children. Research shows that stability in a child’s life contributes to improved health and education outcomes.

The report also points out that supported guardianships can save government funds by closing the case and ending the ongoing social worker and court oversight that is required when children remain in foster care.

Kinship Caregivers Need Support

by Mary Boo, assistant director

On April 10, more than 100 kinship caregivers and child advocates from almost every state gathered in Washington, D.C. to tell their members of Congress about why they need a federally supported subsidized guardianship program. While promoting the Kinship Caregiver Support Act, these dedicated advocates explained why guardianship is a necessary option and how the legislation could immediately help more than 15,000 foster children and youth across the country leave care permanently and safely.

I spent the day with two grandparents from Staten Island, New York, who know firsthand how important a guardianship option is. These dedicated individuals have adopted their niece and nephew and are foster parents to four of their grandchildren, and need support to make ends meet with their now large and unplanned family. Adoption isn't the right option for their grandkids but they see real limitations as foster parents. Several of the children have serious medical problems, but the grandparents cannot get them care without a birth parent's permission. They have had to cancel appointments and reschedule them more than a month later when they have not gotten the permission in time. New York has no subsidized guardianship option, so a federal subsidized guardianship program would definitely improve the lives of these children.

The Kinship Caregiver Support Act has significant bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate. We hope to see it pass into legislation soon. If you would like to write to your member of Congress to urge passage, please visit the Kids Are Waiting web site.

Key House Leader Introduces Broad Child Welfare Reform Bill

On February 14, Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA), chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support (which has jurisdiction over the nation’s child welfare system) introduced The Invest in KIDS Act, which seeks the first comprehensive reform of the U.S. child welfare system in nearly 30 years.

“Every American kid deserves a safe home and a secure life, and in the case of vulnerable children, it is up to us to make sure that happens,” McDermott said.

The legislation (HR 5466) would:

• provide additional funding to help states in their efforts to strengthen families and protect vulnerable children;
• make all foster children eligible for assistance for the first time (only 43% of foster children received federal aid in 2006);
• provide assistance to states to improve and retain their child welfare workforce;
• eliminate the aging out of foster kids at age 18 by extending support to the age of 21; and,
• provide financial support to grandparents and other relatives who want to care for foster children.

These critical changes would provided needed support that help vulnerable children have permanent families, and ensure that those families have the support they need.

Children can't wait. The time for reform is now.

It's Time to Support Kinship Caregivers

On September 10, the Center for Law and Social Policy released a response to Senator Gordon Smith's July 26, 2007 Call for Papers to Examine the Needs of Grandparent and Other Relative Caregivers. The paper highlights research that shows the value of kinship care:

• Children living with kinship foster parents are as safe or safer than other children in foster care.
• Children with kinship foster parents experience fewer moves while in care than children with non-relatives.
• Children with kin foster parents are more likely to live with their brothers and sisters.
• If they re-unify with their birth parents, children who live with kin in foster care are less likely to re-enter care than children who had been with non-relative foster parents.
• Children living with kinship foster parents have fewer behavior problems and feel better about being in foster care.

The report identifies obstacles that face kinship foster parents including lack of support they receive, the difficulties they may face making educational and medical decisions while their kin are in foster care, and a lack of information about available services. In conclusion, the report calls for federal support of subsidized guardianship stating:

"Few relative caregivers would ever describe raising their relative's child as providing a pubic service but, in fact, that is exactly what they are doing. ... Subsidized guardianship can support children in legal guardianships—just as adoption subsidies help children in adoptive families—and increase permanency for more children. Federal dollars are already used to provide assistance to foster and adoptive parents to aid them in providing for the children they are raising; it only makes sense that relative caregivers receive similar support." Specifically, the report calls on Congress to support the Kinship Caregiver Support Act.

We strongly agree.

The Oregonian gives national attention to Kinship Caregiver legislation

On August 17, 2007, the Oregonian published an editorial on the Kinship Caregiver Support Act (S.661/HR.2118). NACAC is delighted to see national attention being paid to this important issue. As the Oregonian points out:

“The Kinship Caregiver Support Act would benefit millions of children being raised by their grandparents or other relatives because their parents are unable to care for them. The act would also help an additional 20,000 children leave foster care to join safe, permanent, loving families of relatives who would be too poor to provide this care without government assistance.

For more than a decade, child welfare agencies have become increasingly reliant on relatives as the first and best option when foster care is needed for a child who has been neglected or abused. To address this powerful trend, the new legislation would create a Kinship Navigator Program that helps such caregivers take full advantage of the child welfare system and other support services, and it would give states the option to use federal funds for subsidized guardianship payments to qualifying low-income families.”

JJ's story posted above illustrates the need for additional services and funding for kinship caregivers. As JJ so eloquently states, "Grandparents shouldn’t have to trade the love they have for their grandchildren for financial ruin and despair."

Action Needed on Guardianship Legislation

A new report from the Government Accountability Office confirms that children of color are over-represented in care and highlights that the federal government needs to act to address this disparity.

As the leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee note in a press release, the report recommends subsidized guardianship as one solution to the problem since so many foster children of color are in the care of relatives. Congressman Charles Rangel explains, “Every foster child dreams of a permanent home. For far too many African American children, this is a dream deferred. We need to work to reduce barriers to permanency for all foster children, but such an effort is particularly necessary for Black children. The GAO report highlights several reforms that might make a positive difference, including providing federal assistance for relatives providing permanent homes for foster children."

The time for action is now. States currently get federal support for foster care and adoption but not for guardianship. Subsidized guardianship is an important permanency option because it allows children and youth to have a permanent, legal family when termination of parental rights is not possible or is not the right option for a particular family.

About 20,000 children have lived for a year or more with relatives in foster care, but they cannot leave the system because they do not have any other options. A court has ruled that reunification with the parents or adoption is not feasible. The caregivers often cannot afford to give up the financial assistance that helps them meet these children’s needs. Subsidized guardianship would provide them with permanence now!

NACAC is asking you to contact your U.S. senators and your representative in support of subsidized guardianship. There are two pending bills that would make subsidized guardianship a reality, and provide other necessary support to kinship caregivers. Please contact your represehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifntatives today to ask them to sign on as co-sponsors of the Kinship Caregiver Support Act (Senate Bill 661 or House Resolution 2188).

Take Action Today!

CALL: A call is best, and all members of Congress can be reached by calling 202-224-3121.

WRITE: Mailing addresses for senators are: The Honorable [Senator’s name], U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. For representatives, address your letter to: The Honorable [Representative’s name], U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515.

To find your Representative’s direct address, phone number, or e-mail, visit http://www.house.gov/writerep. For Senators, go to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

Subsidized Guardianship Legislation Introduced in House

By Mary Boo, NACAC assistant director

On May 10, 2007, Congressman Danny Davis (D-IL) and Congressman Tim Johnson (R-IL) introduced H.R. 2188, the Kinship Caregiver Support Act to mark the 10th anniversary of Illinois’ highly successful subsidized guardianship program. As Davis explained, this bill would provide kinship caregivers with the necessary resources to meet their children’s needs.

Currently federal financial assistance is available only to foster and adoptive families, with only a few states having a waiver that enables them to receive federal support for guardianship families. In his statement, Davis noted:

“Adoption is not a viable option for many children to exit foster care. For example, courts explicitly rule out this permanency option for approximately 20,000 children in relative care each year. Moreover, adoption is not equally availed by families of all races and ethnicities, especially those in African-American and Native-American communities. Thus, subsidized guardianship is an important path to permanency for many abused and neglected children."

In addition to federally funding subsidized guardianship, the bill would:

• implement additional supports for kinship caregivers, such as establishing informational navigator programs to assist grandparents and relatives in accessing appropriate services and supports
• allow states to establish separate licensing standards for relative foster parents and non-relative foster parents and require state agencies to provide prompt notice to all adult relatives when children are removed from parental custody
• expand eligibility for the Foster Care Independence Program so that education and training vouchers as well as independent living services are available to young people who exit foster care after age 14 to guardianship or adoption

Congressman Johnson, in a press statement, explained that the Kinship Caregiver Support Act serves not only meets the aims of family cohesiveness but long-range savings in tax dollars as well: “We are now in effect penalizing grandparents who have the heart and compassion to raise their own but not always adequate means,” Rep. Johnson said. “We can achieve family unity and all the blessings that confers along with saving resources over the long-term. This is a common-sense, bipartisan proposal that deserves to become law.”

This bill is a companion to Senate bill 661 of the same name, introduced by Senators Clinton (D-NY) and Snowe (R-ME).

All Kinds of Families Need Supportive Services

By Bevanjae Kelley, a grandmother raising her two granddaughters and a board member of the Child Welfare Organizing Project in New York

We were experiencing an empty nest, and I was going back to school to get my degree before my granddaughters, 4-year-old Cyré and 14-month-old Ayanna, came to live with me. Their mother, my daughter, was struggling, unable to recover from a traumatic childhood incident.

My daughter didn’t get the help she needed, and the law said she had only 15 months to comply. She wasn’t ready after 15 months. She told me her lawyer never returned her calls and that everyone she talked to said she would never get her kids back. I didn’t know anything about the system and neither did she.

When the 15 months was up, I was pressured to adopt. I would have preferred to be the girls’ guardian and not have to adopt them. Then my daughter wouldn’t have needed to terminate her parental rights.

I love and care for those girls and do all I can to meet their special needs. Cyré has now been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and everything has been a roller coaster ride these past few years. Both girls have also been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder. I got help from a local program that serves families with children who have a mental illness. They help the family work through problems instead of calling ACS. They provide 24-hour access to a psychiatrist, a case manager who coordinated services with school, a respite provider who took the girls out three times a week, and a therapist who provided in-home family therapy once a week. We were part of that program for about two years and it was very helpful. We all have more coping strategies and things are so much better.

I really wish these same services could have been available to my daughter when the girls were young. Everything would have been different then.

Kin Can and Do Provide Permanent Families for Foster Children

By Jennifer Miller, ChildFocus

Federal and state policies promote relative placements as the priority when children enter state custody. Recently, relatives have played an expanded role as resources for safety and permanency in the child welfare system. Relatives can help children preserve family relationships and help minimize the impact of separation from birth parent homes. (See CLASP's resource on kinship care.) They can provide support to birth parents working toward reunification. They are critical links for children in need.

When children cannot return home, relatives often provide permanence through adoption or guardianship. Adoptions by relatives increased from 15 to 21 percent between 1998 and 2000. By 2003, of the 50,000 children adopted from foster care, 23 percent were adopted by relatives. When adoption is not an option, guardianship is an increasingly viable permanency option. (Visit www.kidsarewaiting.com or www.cornerstone.to for more on guardianship.)

Relative adoption is particularly beneficial to African American children, who are vastly overrepresented in foster care. According to Penelope Maza of the Children’s Bureau, the percentage of African American children adopted by relatives increased each year since 2000, reaching a high of 25 percent in 2004. (Read full report.)

Relatives are often heroic—putting their lives on hold, delaying retirement, or using retirement years to parent again. Unfortunately, these same relatives are often marginalized. On the whole, children living with relatives receive fewer services, less oversight, and less funding than those living with unrelated caregivers. (Learn more: Children Cared for by Relatives: Who Are They and How Are They Faring? and Identifying and Addressing the Needs of Children in Grandparent Care.)

Reforms are needed to ensure that children living with relatives receive the help they need, including:

• Federal support for subsidized guardianship
• More flexible resources to prevent the need for children living with relatives to enter foster care
• More flexible funding to support relative adoptions; and
• Allowing states to set licensing and training standards for relatives that are different than those for unrelated caregivers

Kinship care is no longer a discrete program that sits off to the side of the child welfare system. Instead, it has become the face of child welfare and helps children achieve the safety, permanency and well-being they deserve. But relatives cannot do it alone. It is time to recognize and support this role for what it is: creating the next generation of healthy and productive citizens.

We Must Meet the Needs of Foster Children and Youth

by Joe Kroll, NACAC executive director

In March, the NACAC board approved a position statement (link) that states that the public child welfare system has primary responsibility to assess and address the cognitive, social, emotional, physical, developmental, and educational needs of children and youth who are or have been in the foster care system. To achieve this goal, NACAC seeks:

• Comprehensive assessments, conducted by a community-based, multi-disciplinary team, of a child’s or youth’s strengths and needs within 30 days of entering care, plus follow-up assessments
• Training of social workers, teachers, doctors, nurses, and others on the effects of abuse, neglect, and foster care placement
• A plan for provision of needed services, including continuing those services into adoption, guardianship, or reunification

To help achieve these goals, NACAC calls for legislation and rule changes that:

1. Require private and public medical insurance entities to cover mental health services at the same level as physical health services
2. Review Medicaid reimbursement rules and increase reimbursements and streamline the reimbursement process so that more providers accept Medicaid
3. Require HMOs to hire and retain qualified service providers, and when those providers are not available, to fully fund treatment received out of network
4. Fully support the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) program

To ensure educational continuity and success for foster children and youth, NACAC recommends (among other things):

1. Allowing foster children to remain in their school for a school year, in spite of placement moves, when it is in their best interests
2. Requiring agencies to consider school stability during placement decisions
3. Allowing a foster child to be immediately enrolled in school even if all typical requirements (records, immunizations, etc.) are not met

When a public agency takes custody of a child or youth, it must assume responsibility for providing the necessary services and support to achieve the best possible outcomes for that child or youth.

New Report Highlights Need for Subsidized Guardianship

By Mary Boo, NACAC assistant director

Last week, Kids Are Waiting and Generations United released Time for Reform: Support Relatives in Providing Foster Care and Permanent Families for Children. This valuable report details research that identifies the value of relative care and highlights the need for reform to better support relative caregivers. Key findings include:

• Children in relative foster care are as safe or safer than children placed with non-relative foster families.

• Relative foster placements tend to be more stable than placements with unrelated families.

• Brothers and sisters are more likely to be able to stay together when placed with relative foster parents.

• Relatives are often willing to adopt or become permanent guardians when reunification isn’t possible.

In spite of these positives, federal policy does not encourage relative care as it should. Many of relative caregivers are older and on fixed incomes, and they need help to care for their kin. Federal funds can be used to support these caregivers while the children remain in foster care, but not when they are ready and willing to help these children leave care to a permanent, loving family. Almost 20,000 foster children could leave care today if their caregivers could become legal guardians and receive the financial support available to adoptive families. It’s time for federally supported subsidized guardianship.

Subsidized Guardianship Was a Miracle for Me

By Rob Johnson, former foster youth, Illinois/Iowa

When I was 6, I went into foster care. No one told me why I had to leave home. But I am one of the fortunate ones. My story has a happy ending.

Three years after I entered foster care, my aunt was granted one of the first subsidized guardianships in Illinois. She could never have provided for me and my sisters without support to help defray the costs of raising three more children. With that support, I was able to leave foster care for good.

Finding safety, stability, and love had a wonderful effect on me. Once labeled a slow learner, I was told I wouldn't graduate eighth grade. After I had a permanent, loving home with my aunt, I did so well that I eventually earned a full academic scholarship to Drake University in Iowa, where I am studying business and have my own radio show.

I was able to find my miracle through subsidized guardianship, but other foster children are not so lucky.

The federal government should provide funds to states for children who leave foster care to live permanently with grandparents, aunts, uncles, or other guardians. In many cases, if relatives choose to become legal guardians rather than foster parents, they lose federal foster care assistance, which pays for things like food and clothing. That just isn't right.

To take a child away from his family is one of the most heartbreaking things you can do. To put him back with his relatives is one of the greatest gifts you can give. Other foster children deserve such an opportunity.

Senators Support Needed Foster Care Reform

by Joe Kroll, NACAC executive director

NACAC and many other child advocates were delighted to see the following language in a March 2, 2007 memo from Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chair and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, to the leaders of the Senate Committee on the Budget:

"Child Welfare

Since the passage of the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, 392,500 children from the child welfare system have been adopted into safe, permanent homes, and we should continue investments to promote adoption and post-adoption support. Still, 513,000 vulnerable children remain in foster care needing care and support. There are several innovative programs across the country that seek to better engage relative caregivers in the lives of children needing loving safe homes. We wish to explore legislative opportunities for assisting more children to find safe and loving placements with willing relatives when appropriate. There is also an ever increasing need for appropriate and effective child welfare services in Indian country including authorization for direct funding to Tribal governments from the Title IV-E program. … We also plan to explore the issue of child welfare financing and will consider multiple financing reform ideas as well as the ability of the child welfare system to respond to changing levels of need in the future."

We were thrilled to see emphasis on the need for post-adoption support, along with a new interest in helping children and youth achieve permanence through subsidized guardianship. NACAC also strongly supports direct Title IV-E funding for tribes, which would give the tribes financial resources to support the responsibility they already have for native children and youth in their care.

The Senators’ interest in exploring child welfare financing reform is also welcome news. Currently almost 90 percent of federal child welfare funding flows to states only after a child is removed from her family and placed in foster care. It’s time to align federal financing with the goal of achieving a permanent family for every child in care.

It's Time for Subsidized Guardianship and Other Supports for Relative Caregivers

by Joe Kroll, NACAC executive director

On Monday, March 12, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) formally announced the reintroduction of the Kinship Caregiver Support Act, which would provide needed support to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives caring for vulnerable children and youth.

As Senator Clinton explained in a press conference, "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," said Senator Clinton. "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 unnecessary barriers and address the unique challenges facing kinship caregivers struggling to do the right thing for our children," said Senator Clinton.

NACAC supports this legislation (see our position statements on kinship care and subsidized guardianship). We are particularly interested in seeing federal support for subsidized guardianship. Guardianship is a permanency option that is right for many of the children and youth in foster care who cannot return to their birth families, but for whom adoption is not the right option. I have been particularly moved by several youth in care who have spoken about the reasons guardianship would be the best permanency option for them:

Jackie Hammers-Crowell of Iowa, whose mother’s developmental delays prevented her from raising Jackie, explains why guardianship would have been better than aging out of 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, hurtfully terminated against our wills.” Montana resident Rob Carson had a similar experience. Although they couldn’t raise him, he had connections with his birth parents and did not want to relinquish those ties.

Nationally about 19,250 children live with relative foster parents with 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 who care for them. We’ll 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.