Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, throughout my career in the Senate, I have been proud to fight tirelessly for policies that will help vulnerable children in our foster care system find the permanent homes they need and deserve. I have been very proud of the Finance Committee's bipartisan work over the years to encourage adoption and enhance child welfare services for our most vulnerable children. That work would not have been possible without the commitment of Chairman Baucus, as well as my other colleagues that I have been so proud to work with over the years. Our goal has always been to improve our Federal laws related to adoption and foster care, so that every child has an opportunity to have a loving, safe home and a successful future.

To build on our history of encouraging safe and stable families, Senator Casey and I are introducing the Removing Barriers to Adoption and Supporting Families Act of 2013. This legislation outlines our vision for a path to increase the number of successful adoptions from foster care in our country. Doing so, we believe, can improve the lives of the hundreds of thousands of children in our foster care system.

This legislation encourages safe and stable families, and takes a number of important steps forward to ensure that permanency is paramount for children in our foster care system.

First, the legislation puts incentives in place to help encourage interstate adoptions, creating a shared incentive for states that work together to connect children in foster care with families who are ready and willing to provide loving homes, but who happen to live across state lines. It also helps facilitate interstate adoptions further through better data tracking and development of national standards for home studies, a requirement before a child can be adopted.

Second, the bill aims to establish permanency for youth by eliminating long-term foster care as a goal for children under 17. We also request a study to learn more about why long-term foster care has been set as a goal for some youth. We believe the study will further inform our overall goal of connecting these children to permanent families and caring adults. But, simply put, we believe permanent foster care should not be a goal for children who are younger than 17.

Third, this legislation dedicates funding to post-adoption and post-permanency support services for children who are adopted, or are permanently in the care of a relative or guardian. This is an important step to make sure that families receive support after a child becomes a family member and, more broadly, can help make sure more adoptions and permanent placements are successful. Additionally, the legislation requires states to engage in public-private partnerships and enhanced strategies to find more permanent placements for older youth who are most at risk of aging out of foster care. Among our foster care population, these are some of our most vulnerable and valuable young people who are most in need of guidance and a loving, nurturing home.

Finally, this legislation would do more to keep siblings together after they are removed from an unsafe home. The bond between siblings is unique and often an important source of stability for children. Unfortunately, once a child joins a permanent home through adoption, there are sometimes barriers to maintaining sibling relationships under current Federal law. Our legislation helps to remove these barriers by strengthening the opportunities for sibling relationships and joint placement, and making sure that the parents of siblings are given notice if their brother or sister enters foster care.

Our legislation lays out an important vision for how we can improve adoption and foster care in our country. Adoptions from foster care have increased in recent years, which means that more families are stepping up to adopt children who are in vulnerable situations through no fault of their own. But, we have far more to do to ensure that every child in foster care has this opportunity. I am extremely grateful to many of the adoption advocates, including the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, Voice for Adoption, and Listening to Parents, among others, who have been so instrumental in developing recommendations and moving this and other related proposals forward.

Together, we can make great strides toward improving opportunities for the nearly 400,000 children in foster care, of which 102,000 are waiting to find forever families through adoption. New data from the Department of Health and Human Services on adoption and foster care suggests that while the number of children in foster care remains steady, the adoption rate continues to climb. Last year alone, 52,000 children were adopted from foster care and for each of those children, being adopted is a positive, affirming, and life-changing event. Through our work, we can provide more of these opportunities for children in foster care, and set them up to have successful lives with forever families.

Source