New York State Senator Velmanette Montgomery

‘Velmanette builds the wagons, puts them on the road, and then everybody else jumps on them’

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) ended decades of secrecy around adoptions in New York on Thursday, signing a landmark reform bill to allow adult adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates.

When caseworkers remove children from their homes and place them into foster care, it can be jarring and traumatic. A new law in New York aims to ease the transition by enabling a wider circle of family members and even non-relatives to become the kids’ foster parents.

The New York State legislature passed a raft of historic child welfare bills this year. All of them aimed to strengthen birth family ties: one bill would open access to original birth certificates for adoptees; another increases the standard of evidence in child neglect cases, and decreases the consequences of such investigations for parents; four other bills boost support for relatives and family friends who care for someone else’s child.