ASFA

This is a moment that should not be wasted. Seemingly everyone who wants to be on Martin Luther King Jr.’s side of the arc of justice has issued uncommonly strong criticism of structural racism in the United States, including many who have played an outsize role in shaping America’s child welfare system.

Prolonged temporary care, whether unintended or not, amounts to child abuse.  Child protection agencies have the power to radically reduce time in foster care, but too often back off, waiting to see how the birth parents do.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) was passed in 1999 to minimize foster care drift and shorten the stay in temporary care. Recognizing that one year is already a very long time in the life of a child, the intent was to set a limit. 

Jamie Law has fostered 28 children. But she says her fostering days are over. In April 2013, she picked up a two-day-old baby from the hospital. A year and a half later, she and her husband signed paperwork to adopt him.

Andrew Bridge, former foster youth, Harvard Law graduate, and the author of the wildly popular novel “Hope’s Boy” has just quieted the crowd of roughly 150 child welfare advocates, researchers and youth services providers convened on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania for a two-day conference exploring issues facing youth aging out of foster care.

Much of the demand for help by parents who adopt from foster care comes years after the point of adoption, according to the Donaldson Adoption Institute (DAI), which released two reports today making the case for an increased investment in pre- and post-adoption services.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-89) mandated shortened timelines for achieving permanency for children in foster care. To meet these timelines, many States have identified concurrent planning as a recognized or required practice for achieving permanency.