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The Pew Charitable Trusts Funds National Council For Adoption to Engage Adoption Leaders in Promoting Foster Care Reforms

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact:
Lee Allen
703-299-6633
Email: lallen@infantadopt.org


ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, December 2, 2004 – The National Council For Adoption (NCFA), with funding by The Pew Charitable Trusts, has launched the Adoption Leader Engagement Project (ALEP), to better serve children in foster care. “There are some 532,000 children in foster care, including 129,000 waiting to be adopted,” says Thomas Atwood, president and CEO of NCFA. “Each one deserves America’s best efforts to provide a loving, permanent family.”

Building upon the work of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, ALEP is designed to educate policy makers, judicial leaders, the media, and the general public on the importance of establishing performance-based measures for family courts, promoting judicial leadership, and allowing states greater flexibility and accountability in federal foster care funding. The Commission’s May 2004 report, “Fostering the Future: Safety, Permanence and Well-Being for Children in Foster Care,” helped to establish consensus on much-needed next steps in child welfare reform.

“Consensus and good intentions are helpful, but not sufficient, for success,” Atwood observes. “For reform efforts to be successful, education and advocacy from effective outside groups are essential to equip and motivate policy makers and judicial leaders to do the right thing for America’s foster children.”

By enabling NCFA to increase substantially its efforts to promote court improvement, judicial leadership, and federal foster care financing reforms, the Adoption Leader Engagement Project will help deliver the action and public awareness necessary for successful reform.

NCFA has argued in congressional testimony that the time for performance measures for family courts has come. Through ALEP, NCFA will use its government relations and public affairs expertise and influence to help make this idea an effective reality. The project will also enable NCFA to equip and motivate Chief Justices, judges, and court administrators to live up to their judicial-leadership responsibilities to better serve children in foster care.

Through ALEP, NCFA will also promote federal foster care financing reforms, such as more flexible funding for states that enables them to target their federal foster care dollars more suitably to the needs of their respective foster populations; de-linking adoption assistance and foster care payments to cover all children; allowing states that reduce their foster care use to reinvest the unspent funds in other services; combining IV-B services and IV-E administration and training into a flexible grant; and expanding child welfare waiver options for states.

“Thanks to increased attention to foster care both inside and outside the government, there currently exists a window of opportunity to achieve real, constructive foster care reform,” says Maureen Byrnes, director of health and human services for the Trusts. “The Pew Charitable Trusts is delighted to partner with the National Council For Adoption in advancing this goal.”

To meet the goals of the Adoption Leader Engagement Project, NCFA will employ its full range of communications tools to reach key policy makers, judicial leaders, adoption professionals, the media, and the general public – including policy briefs, fact sheets, and its authoritative reference, Adoption Factbook IV to be published in 2005; op eds, articles, and press releases; Web site, newsletters, and action alerts; and expert testimony, conference presentations, and educational meetings.

Atwood continues, “Strategic policy analysis and communications are exactly what NCFA does best. We are very excited about this project, and grateful to the Trusts for enabling NCFA to bring its government relations and public affairs expertise more fully to bear in support of the vital cause of better serving America’s foster children.”

About The Pew Charitable Trusts

The Pew Charitable Trusts (www.pewtrusts.org) serves the public interest by providing information, policy solutions and support for civic life. Based in Philadelphia, with an office in Washington, DC, the Trusts make investments to provide organizations and citizens with fact-based research and practical solutions for challenging issues. With approximately $4.1 billion in dedicated assets, in 2003 the Trusts committed more than $143 million to 151 nonprofit organizations.

About NCFA

Since 1980, NCFA has been a leading voice among national adoption and child welfare organizations. NCFA is a research, education, and advocacy nonprofit that provides adoption information, promotes ethical adoption practices, informs public policy and opinion about adoption issues, and serves as a resource for birthparents, adopted persons and their families, those seeking to adopt, and adoption professionals.

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