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Statement of Thomas Atwood, National Council For Adoption, Alexandria, Virginia

Dear Chairman Herger and Members of the Subcommittee:

The National Council For Adoption thanks you for the opportunity to submit this written statement for your June 9, 2005 hearing’s record, on the subject of federal foster care financing. The National Council For Adoption (NCFA) applauds the Human Resources Subcommittee’s perseverance in studying and reforming federal foster care financing. The Chairman’s and Subcommittee’s leadership in addressing this issue has helped to create an excellent opportunity to take an important next step in foster care reform. In both political parties, and across the philosophical spectrum, there is a rare moment of consensus regarding many key principles and policies that can be adopted to better serve children in foster care, through financing reform. 

There are important differences, which must be debated and resolved in the legislative process. But in reviewing the major federal foster care financing reform proposals – such as the Child SAFE Act of 2004, the report of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, and the President’s Child Welfare Program Option – it is clear that there are large areas of agreement, both in principle and policy. Whatever one’s ideas regarding the “perfect” reform agenda, many of the ideas that have been presented would be improvements upon the existing policy. We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. NCFA urges all leaders and stakeholders to take advantage of this rare moment of consensus and achieve the achievable, for the sake of America’s deserving foster children.

At the level of principle, there is widespread agreement that federal foster care financing must be made more flexible, so that states are not so narrowly restricted to spending their federal dollars on foster care maintenance. NCFA agrees with the many advocates and policy makers who have cited the need to enable states to direct some of these funds to prevention and reunification efforts. NCFA would add parent recruitment and preparation to this short list of priorities for which states need more flexibility in their federal foster care funding. 

There are enough prospective parents resources in America to care for the children in foster care, but they need leadership in order to recognize their callings to adopt or foster parent. There are more than 425 married couples for each child waiting to be adopted out of foster care, and millions of qualified singles who could adopt as well. There are three places of worship for each child waiting to be adopted, and all of America’s faiths exhort their believers to care for orphans. There are private adoption agencies that, with training, could join in serving children in foster care, through adoption and foster placements, pre- and post-placement counseling, and other services. Increased flexibility in federal foster care funding would loose the “laboratories of democracy” on this strategic agenda of parent recruitment and preparation.

States need to be able to spend their foster care dollars on effective efforts to prevent children from entering the system in the first place and to rehabilitate families so they can be reunified. But please consider one cautionary note: While moving in this direction, let us not forget one of the main reasons Congress enacted the Adoption and Safe Families Act in 1997. At that time, many children were languishing in foster care because the child welfare system’s efforts to preserve the family sometimes went beyond any reasonable expectation that it was in the child’s interest to do so. We should be careful to avoid recurrences of that problem.

At the policy level, there is widespread consensus on: allowing states to reinvest unspent foster care funds in other child welfare services; expanding and improving child welfare waiver options for states; de-linking federal foster care and adoption assistance payments from AFDC income standards, to cover all children; extending foster care and adoption assistance payments to tribes and territories; and guaranteeing increasing foster care funding. If all that Congress accomplished was to enact these policies, Congress will have achieved a great deal.

The issue of whether foster care maintenance payments should be capped is important. But considering that both sides support, at a minimum, guaranteed rising foster care spending and access to contingency funds, it is difficult to see how the outcome of that debate, whatever it is, should cause a reformer to oppose the final legislative product. NCFA will have more to say about these and other related issues in a later publication.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, if ever there was a good use of federal taxpayer dollars, it is to provide for right and timely placements of children in foster care. America’s foster children are in public care for their protection, through no fault of their own. The National Council For Adoption applauds your efforts to ensure that federal foster care funding is adequate, and appropriately directed, in order to ensure the safety, permanence, and well-being of America’s deserving foster children. NCFA stands ready to assist you in this worthy cause, in any way possible.

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